tv PBS News Hour PBS August 14, 2024 3:00pm-4:01pm PDT
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bring people back together. >> hope is not there. all of those should look at that and say what can we do? >> ukrainian forces push further into russia despite putin's efforts to counter the weeklong incursion. ♪ >> major funding has been provided by -- >> consumer cellular, how may i help you? i thought i would let you know that with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of our thing. have a nice day. >> a successful business owner sells his company and restores his father's historic jazz club. a raymondjames financial advisor
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will get to know you. life well planned. >> the kettering foundation, working to advance inclusive democracies. >>the kovlar foundation, pulling freedom by strengthening democracies at home and abroad. ♪ the walton family foundation, working with solutions to protect water during climate change so people and nature can thrive together. the macarthur foundation, committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world. ♪ and with the ongoing support of these institutions. this program was made possible
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by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your station by viewers like you. thank you. >> welcome. the top issue for many voters, the economy,ook center stage today as donald trump returned to campaign and a battleground state. >>'s north carolina rally followed a scattershot news conference at his mar-a-lago estate and a be entering conversation with elon musk. ♪ reporter: donald trump back on the campaign trail, trying to get back on message. the former president rallied in a battleground state for the first time in a week and a half. >> she will only >> make it worse. >>he talked about the economy, one of the top issues for voters , and he slammed harris for her
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economic record. >> if she wins this election, there will be an economic crash. a 1929 style depression. when i when the election, we will immediately begin a brand-new economic boom. we will turn this country around so fast. >> the economy today got a bit of good news. inflation fell below 3% for the first time since 2021. trump repeated his list of grievances. he was joined by mark robertson, who has sparked controversy on his can -- comments on religion and civil-rights. >> this does not jive with being able to have a good economy. reporter: his presence has some
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republicans warning the party could alienate voters. >> he needs to go out there and campaign every single day telling the american people exactly what harris has said. reporter: nikki haley and others have criticized trump for veering away from the issues. >> the campaign is not going to be one talking about crowd sizes or what race she is. or if she is dumb. you cannot weigh in on those things. >> those alarm bells, as harris is gaining momentum in every battleground straight except one. -- state except one. in the days leading up to the democratic national convention, they are closing the enthusiasm gap. excitement has jumped double digits since jane, when joe
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biden was still in the race. >> she is fighting for people like you. reporter: the harris campaign announced a $90 million advertisement buy. prominent republicans held a republicans for harris event. >> she is standing here in michigan asking us for a promotion. i think we should know thank you. reporter: both running mates were on the trail. in michigan, jd vance confronted criticisms that trump has been distracted. >> i think he has earned the right to run the campaign that he wants to run. if you listen to what he says and what i say, we are prosecuting the case against harris on policy. reporter: tim walz fund raised
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in boston and denver. harris was off the trail, but she plans to unveil her economic message later this week, also in north carolina. for the formal president, the specter of his legal battles still clouds his election calendar. the manhattan judge said he will not step aside from the case. sentencing is set for september 18, just a week after the first presidential debate. ♪ >> we start other headlines in the middle east. the u.s. as it remains committed to talks to end the fighting in gaza. this comes after a group said it
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was losing faith. health officials say is really airstrikes -- israeli airstrikes killed more people. there was an emphasis for a need for a cease-fire. >> there is no more time to waste. there are no more valid excuses from any party. for any further delay. the deal would help this in lebanon. that would prevent an out break of a wider war. >> concerns about a broader conflict were heightened by the death of a hamas leader in an explosion in tehran. iran has vowed to retaliate. the taliban marks the third
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anniversary of its return to power in afghanistan. this included a military parade. some of the hardware on display were left behind during the evacuation of the u.s. and nato-led forces. taliban leaders praised their achievements but made no mention of the hardships faced by the population. >> there is no work in our country. many people are unemployed. so therefore's to migrate to iran and pakistan. if there were good job opportunities, nobody would want to leave. >> a group say millions of afghans are on the brink of hunger and starvation. the world health organization has declared monkeypox outbreaks a global health emergency. it is transmitted through close contact and can cause painful
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lesions all of the body. there have been more than 14,000 cases in africa so far this year. the vast majority of them in the congo. the outbreaks to become a global threat. >> today's emergency community met advised me that this constitutes a public health emergency of international concern. its clear that a coordinated response is essential to stop this out break save lives. >> western countries have been spread -- controlling the spread with vaccines and treatments, but those have not been available in africa. ernesto has strengthened into a hurricane. in puerto rico, floodwaters consumed entire streets.
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roughly 700,000 people and more than 20,000 -- 20 hospitals were without power today. the storm turned away from the caribbean and is expected to intensify as it heads north toward bermuda. expectations are growing that the federal reserve will cut interest rates at its meeting next month. data from the u.s. labor department today shows that consumer prices rose just 2.9% in july. that is the first time inflation dipped below 3% since 2021. president biden seized on the cooling prices when asked about inflation of the white house today >> as the u.s. beat inflation? >> yes. i told you we would have a software and a. my policies are working. start writing that way. >> it has come down
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significantly since the peak of above 9% in 2022. that inflation news drove some modest gains on wall street today. the dow jones added 240 points. the s&p 500 ended higher for a fifth straight session. still to come, why baltimore has been hit especially hard by drug overdoses. the perilous journey migrants are making to cross a land bridge between north and south america. and nasa weighs its options for bringing stranded astronauts back home. >> this is the news hour from our studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> in year three of russia's full-scale invasion of ukraine,
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kyiv has flipped the script on moscow with an audacious invasion. >> ukraine said it blasted its way farther into russia, where it has taken russians prisoner. the governor of a neighboring region declared a state of emergency. this is the largest cross-border attack since the russian invasion and the largest presence of foreign troops in russia since world war ii. >> ukraine has struggled on defense for over two years. today, it is on offense. ukrainian soldiers have thrown aside vladimir putin's claim that the war would not touch russia. they travel through russian villages, raising ukrainian flags and changing russian spellings to ukrainian.
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they were fending off heavy russian attacks. ukraine is also trying to bring the fights into russia with long-range drones. they said they launched their largest drone strike yet. one target was a russian airbase. to discuss the incursion and the overall state of the war, we turn to the senior fellow at the carnegie endowment for international peace, a think tank in washington. welcome back. what significance does this incursion have? >> is a very significant development. it has changed the prevailing the -- narrative. this incursion has been going on
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for over a week. it is a fairly sizable operation. >> we will go to the military details of what is happening but let me ask repeatedly, what is the political impact on putin and the overall narrative that comes out of the kremlin? >> this incursion is deeply embarrassing for the kremlin. this is now front and center. it changes the perception of other countries looking at the war. russian leadership is trying to portray confidence. thinking that there was no way they could lose. but this has the potential to
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change things. >> why do you believe ukrainians have had some success? why was this area so finley defended? >> it is clear that the russian leadership did not anticipate an attack cost border into their own territory. after the initial breakthrough, they have the run of the place for the first couple of days. the russian military has taken a large -- long time to deploy to the area. >> what are the russian military reserves who are they are trying to do? putin will have to evict them. how tough will that be? >> is not clear what the goal of the russian ukrainian operation is.
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i think they will try to counter this incursion. the russian military has pulled some forces from the front lines. the ukrainian advanced has slowed down significantly. but it is still making progress. the russian military is trying to counter it and stabilize the front. they have not been able to do that. ukraine military is pouring more forces into this operation to try to push and expand. >> ukraine itself decided to redeploy some troops from ukraine in the area where it is fighting pitched battles with russia and move them into russia. is there any risk to ukraine's effort within its own country. >> this comes with a significant
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risk for overextension. ukraine does not have a substantial advantage. it is clear that they can cause some significant downside and risk. the russian military is making advances across ukraine. a lot depends on what happens there in the coming days with russian forces. if the russian military is able to stabilize this offensive. without having to pull asa mansell amount of forces from their operations in the yet -- rest of ukraine. this still remains to be seen. >> u.s. official confirmed that ukraine is using american weapon systems inside of russia. how significant is that? >> it seems to have basically a
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degree of tacit acceptance from western countries to do that. so i think it is a notable development. ukraine wants greater freedom to the ploy western capabilities. >> i mentioned before what ukraine called its largest long-range drone strike into russia. how significant are these? >> it is a notable development. russia has had this capability for the better part of the war. but over the past year ukraine has increased its production of
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drones and has concentrated them on these types of strikes. ukraine is starting to overtake the size of overall strikes and is only set to expand those types of strikes in russia. having the ability to inflict damage on russian airbases. >> thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. ♪ >> the illegal border crossings into the u.s. from mexico have dropped precipitously in the last few months. but farther south, hundreds of thousands of migrants are making dangerous journeys through one of the world's most treacherous
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jungles. the atlantic magazine documented these efforts. a staff writer made several reporting trips into the jungle, following migrants during the crossing. she joins me now. thank you for being with us. you made a number of trips to the darien gap, this nearly impenetrable jungle that people go through every year. for people who have never been there and will never be able to go there, described to us what it was like for you to make that journey. >> it is this narrow stretch of land that extends out of northern colombia and into southern panama.
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it is dense and mountainous are the list of threats that migrants face is very long. everything from flash floods that are common because it rains on a daily basis to have heart attacks from overexertion. there are deadly snakes, jumbo cats. you also have groups of robbers who will attack migrants. they are very often robbed and frequently experienced sexual assault on this journey. it is grueling. it was certainly the hardest thing i have ever done physically. that is something that six with me to this day. just the amount of desperation. it is almost impossible to be prepared. even if you are healthy and as
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prepared as you can possibly be, this is an incredibly treacherous thing to try to do. >> you said that according to the u.n., one 800,000 people could make that same journey this year. that would be a more than 50% spike over last year's numbers. children under the age of five like this young girl who you met along the way. she is seeing comforting her mother in this photo. children under five are the fastest growing group. tell us about these families. why are the numbers surging so dramatically? >> the first thing i heard from most of the parents who had young children with them is ty would rather be anywhere else. a lot of families had tried resettling in chile. they were originally from
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venezuela. they could not things work there. a lot of people would prefer to settle in places but those economies were devastated by the pandemic. so this is a last resort option. smugglers to shepherd people into this area mislead people about what they're in for. they make it seem like it will be easier. but most people who show up at the mouth of the jungle with young kids know that they are risking lives. >> we know many of those people trying to make it all the way to the u.s.. the biden administration put tougher border restrictions and the place severely limiting who can't enter and claim asylum. that has caused a dramatic incline at the border. official numbers are not yet out. do people you met along the way know of those restrictions? >> not at all.
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there are summative impact that come into play here. usually when people are making the decision to migrate, they are not talking about u.s. policy. they feel like they are fleeing a life or death circumstances. that is why they are willing to take risks. these policies have had some impact. as has pressure on mexico. one policy that people didn't know about was the app being used to relieve pressure at the border. so you can apply for permission to fly to the border and get an interview rather than having to take a more dangerous option. this is all playing a role. but it is not limiting this migration because of the
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circumstances that people are fleeing. i always caution against saying that border crossings are down this month and it is all attributable to a policy. >> you said trying to stop someone is like trying to stop someone at a finish line. harris was not put in charge of the border but she was put in charge of addressing the root causes. it seems like the root causes have only gotten worse over time. >> the answer is a little bit more complicated. most people crossing the border
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were coming from central america. migration from central america is going down. we had increasing numbers of people crossing the border from venezuela, china, haiti, throughout latin america. i think that changing dynamic underscore is how tough this is. >> thank you so much for joining us. great to speak with you. >> thank you for having me. ♪
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>> more than 100,000 americans are dying from drug overdoses every year, largely from fentanyl. no city has been hit as hard as baltimore when it comes to overdose deaths. >> in this neighborhood, everyone seems to know her. after years of battling drug addiction, she is now in recovery. >> we have to give them some resources. reporter: today she runs a nonprofit. she helps those struggling with addiction find treatment. this often starts with basic questions.
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>> they stimulate relationships with people to be open. put your hands on your eyes. >> she came with her granddaughter. >> i have a big surprise to show you. reporter: she wanted her to see another street sign. >> look at that. reporter: it was here that someone died from an overdose. >> i could not help my own son. reporter: just a few miles away, she has also gone back to where tragedy struck.
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her son was found dead from an overdose in 2022. he told her he was headed to an addiction treatment program. >> i gave him a hug and that was the last conversation we had. reporter: he had likely been found -- dead for a month before he was found. >> that was the day i feel like he died because i never heard from him again. i was not worrying about it. people kept asking me. i was sure he was fine. after 30 days, i called the police. reporter: while the city has long struggle with addiction, fentanyl hit baltimore very hard. almost 6000 people have died from overdose. that is an average of three people every day. >> no major american city has
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had a drug overdose crisis as severe as baltimore. reporter: they are reporters for the baltimore banner. for the last two years, they have been investigating the overdose crisis. >> something we have heard over and over again is that every day, we get a homicide tally but we don't get the same for overdoses. it is a far greater problem. reporter: getting the data has not been easy. in january, a judge ruled >> >> in their favor. we knew these were public records. the public should know what is happening with overdose deaths. >> from the moment that data ended up on my computer, we started investigating.
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the entire since test city has overdose deaths. some have lost 10% of their population. reporter: overdoses began spiking in baltimore about a decade ago. there have been other challenges like a gun violence and the pandemic. one demographic has been hit especially hard, older black man. >> they die at higher rates from overdose than they did from covid. and all cancers put together. there is nothing statistically that kills this group of people more than overdose. reporter: how has the city responded to your reporting? >> they were very defensive. they saw it as misguided and victim blaming.
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they said we should have focused on opioid manufacturers. because they are currently litigating against pharmaceutical companies. reporter: baltimore has reached $90 million in settlement agreements. just last week they reached an agreement with cvs. in a september trial. the mayor of baltimore the client are interview requests. but his office provided us with this statement. for years, manufacturers of opioids targeted baltimore with hundreds of millions of pills. they faulted the city for not cleaning up the mess. he planned a public hearing looking into what the investigation found. >> we need as much information
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as possible if we are going to be effective on the changing nature of drug overdoses. reporter: just hours before the hearing was scheduled to start, it was abruptly canceled. the mayor said it could endanger the litigation against manufacturers. >> to not have transparent, open conversations of what we are dealing with i think is a mistake. we have decisions we should be considering right now. reporter: while the litigation continues, many families are still coming to grips with all that has been lost. >> i never thought he was dead. i never thought that. reporter: when she finally got an update on her son, it was the kind of news that no mother wanted to hear. >> police called and said can i come up? he did not even tell me. i sat down and i could see. i said, please don't tell me
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that. reporter: today, she was a necklace that her son was wearing at the time of his death. she tries to remember the good times. >> we did so many things that i am so grateful for. i wanted a lot more years. but you have to be grateful for the time you are given. >> you can come here whenever you want. reporter: she is now using her son's death to try to reach as many people that she can before it is too late. >> my son had to dive for me to live. this was part of my assignment. ♪ >> nasa and boeing are grappling
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with how best to bring a couple of u.s. astronauts back to earth. leaks and other technical issues suffered by the spacecraft on its way to the international space station have delayed the planned return flight by two months. that has left the astronauts stuck in space. to help us understand what it all means, we are joined by our science and aviation correspondent. what went wrong? >> there were signs of trouble from the beginning. there were helium links on the launchpad. this would have required a significant delay to do the work to try to fix those. helium is very difficult to track down. but they still decided to launch.
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once they got into orbit, the leaks persisted. when they docked with the space station, seven thrusters which guide the capsule through space failed inexplicably. at the bottom of the ledger here, the engineers are scratching their heads. they don't know the root cause. they still don't understand it. that has given them great pause. >> one backup option is they could hitch a ride on a spacex craft. but that would not be until next year. >> that mission was scheduled to launch on sunday.
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that has been delayed. it is quite possible the scenario could play out where a couple of those individuals could be told to stay-at-home. they come up to the international space station carrying the spacesuits required. and a couple of empty seats. they would be drafted onto the crew had absorbed as part of it. and would stay up there until february. >> these are two veteran space explorers. has nasa said anything about how the two of them are holding up? and if they have enough supplies to sustain being up there for months. >> the space station is pretty well-stocked. i should point out that at the last minute, they put in a
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recycling system. they told him to not bring in any additional clothing. they are up there with one set of clothes. but there is a cupboard full of clothing and plenty of food. there is no reason to be concerned about them. >> what does all this mean for boeing and their relationship with nasa? >> it goes right back to the beginning. they built the mercury and gemini capsules. the space shuttle orbiter and the space station itself. it is hard to imagine them reaching some kind of separation down the road. but this is a serious setback.
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nasa wanted to have a couple of different spacecraft in low-earth orbit. now they can only rely on space x. >> we don't know precisely when they will be able to return. >> i suspect this time next week we will hear. . nasa will continue looking at this. they will create some 3d modeling to try to fully understand it. at this juncture they will be hard to get that confidence. boeing insists that the test set been done and the spacecraft is safe. but all of the people making the decisions lived through the tragedy of the columbia loss. no one wants to repeat that. no one wants to make a decision
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when the hardware is telling you that something is wrong. >> thank you as always. >> you are welcome. ♪ >> many u.s. corporations are navigating the divisive political climate on a range of issues. from trade to diversity to immigration. >> the ceo of the country's largest bank has been speaking out about it. we spoke with him in arkansas. >> every summer for the past 14 years, he has spent a week traveling through different parts of the country on his annual bus tour, visiting bank branches like this one, opened
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just last year in arkansas. meeting with employees and clients and asking and answering questions. he is one of the most powerful figures on wall street, at the helm of jpmorgan chase for the past 20 years. every year he writes a letter to shareholders outlining his top concerns. things like education, ddi, and the conflicts in ukraine and the middle east. with trump charging that the u.s. economy is shattered, his view is striking. >> this is the most prosperous, innovative, best economy the world has ever seen. it has lifted billions of people out of poverty. you compare us to the rest of
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the western world, it is quite good. we need to continue to do that. >> you wrote in your letter to shareholders in the spring about the polarized electorate. you said we need to find ways to put aside our differences. why do we find ourselves in the situation? >> i will give you my theory. we had a financial crisis. i heard a lot of people. it discredited a lot of wall street. if you look at the incremental's in america, we had very slow growth. the bottom 20% did not have a pay increase. they also have less insurance. they are dying younger. their schools are failing. the equal opportunity was not there.
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there is also this constant degrading of your fellow americans because of what they believe. >> recently wrote an opinion piece aimed at the next american president, stressing the need for national unity. an equal opportunity for all. morning that the american dream is disappearing for many because opportunity is not shared equally. so what is the solution? >> earned income tax credit. a lot of people don't avail themselves of this because they do not know about it. i would get rid of the child requirement. anyone working, the money would go to the families and their communities. spent the way they think they
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should spend. jobs create dignity. if i was the federal government, i would start in high school and community colleges. we want to measure you on the outcomes. that would incentivize them to say what do we need to do to get jobs going? >> we talked about income disparities. some will have the view that the
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big financial powerhouses in this country have played a role in continuing and exacerbating our divide. what role has the private sector played and the financial sector played in creating this inequality that we live with right now? >> there are good companies and bad companies. most of the banks i know have special programs for minority mortgages, veterans. we hire the disabled. we try to do our part. we cannot do the part of the government needs to do. we can help. that is true for a lot of special interest groups.
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it is not enough if the federal government does not do its part. how do you get them to do that? when they are so far apart on so many issues right now? >> they come together for certain things. that is hard work. don't get frustrated. just do it. there are a lot of parts of my job i don't like either but i do them. >> you talked about reducing the debt. encouraging investment. lowering inequality, strengthening the military. how do you do all that and bring the debt down? >> i think it is doable. i would spend the money that helps make this an amazing country. i would have a competitive tax system. and then i would maximize growth. growth is also about faster permitting. you will have a little bit of
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deficit. maybe you would raise taxes just a little bit. i would do that. and we will be fine. >> the buffet rule says that no household earning over $100 million should pay a smaller share of their tax income then other families. do you think things could get worse during this campaign or better? >> i don't know. i hope both candidates realize that making americans angry is not a good thing to do. >> and yet that language persists on the campaign trail. >> these guys are creepy and weird. that is what you see. >> but much of the vitriol is coming from trump. >> now we have a new victim to defeat. >> do you think it is time for people like you to say to him
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and others, let's stop this? >> i don't like any of that stuff. they have different views and different opinions. he has been right on some things. >> earlier this year in an interview with cnbc, he said he was trying to make that point. >> that is why they are voting for him. >> some took that as a signal of support for trump. but he says it was a warning to democrats. >> i think this negative talk about maggot will -- maga will hurd. i was making the same point.
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they voted because they thought there was partial truth that immigration is a problem. that nato is a problem. i don't want to leave nato. i'm a strong supporter. but there are problems with the funding of nato. people should stop insulting maga. >> he calls for strengthening diversity even as many policies are on the chopping block in more than 30 states. and other corporations pull back. you are saying this when we are hearing a lot of ugly language about di. it has >> >> become a pejorative term. i don't think most people are against it.
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i understand the pushed back. we do it our way. we think about it. we take care of our communities. we try to list up parts of society. as for the major party presidential nominees, he knows them both. he had negotiations with harris over a multibillion dollar related to homeowners hurt by predatory lenders. more recently, trump suggested he could serve as his treasury secretary. but then quickly dispelled that idea. whoever wins in november, he says he is hopeful that the country will find a way forward.
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given this polarized atmosphere, can the u.s. move ahead on the great challenges facing this country? >> i believe it will. someone could bend the curve a little bit. if they do it respectively. lincoln said let's hope we are on god's side. he was one of our greatest presidents. things come along people change. maybe a leader changes. they realize they have to go in another direction. when warren buffett talks about the great resiliency of america, i believe that.
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♪ >> there is a lot more online, including a look at where vice president harris stands on reproductive rights issues. >> that is the news hour for tonight. thank you for spending part of your evening with us. >> this is been brought to you by the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends. the ford foundation, working with visionaries worldwide. funding was provided by --
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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 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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hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour & company." here's what's coming up. >> the regime is at its weakest position ever. they have lost total legitimacy. >> what next for venezuela? maduro cracks down amid accusations of stealing the latest election. i reach the opposition leader maria corina machado in hiding. then the specter of full-blown regional war hovers over the middle east. a cease-fire betweensr
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