give homeowners a break. vote yes on 15. captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> for me, it wasn't therapeutic. it just made me better. okay? i call that a cure. >> the president is talking about regeneron. but no one but mr. trump is claiming a cure for covid-19. labs around the world are racing to develop therapies like regeneron to reduce the severity of the disease. tonight, we'll tell you about some promising leads. how long will it be before a person contracts covid, they go to their doctor, they get a prescription, and they go home? ( ticking ) >> have you given up your careers? >> oh, for sure.

we-- none of us will ever work in republican politics again. >> steve schmidt is among a group of lifelong republicans who have mounted a rogue offensive aimed at defeating president trump. ♪ don't cry for me ♪ they call themselves the lincoln project, and they're producing dozens of bare-knuckle attack ads designed to help joe biden. ♪ the truth is i will infect you ♪ ♪ i broke my promise won't keep my distance ♪ ( ticking ) >> grizzly bears can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds, and stand nine feet tall on their hind legs. ( growling ) >> you're all right. >> what has happened to these ferocious predators has been put on the endangered species list in 1975. it's a story of conservation and conflict, as we saw in montana. telling me i can do this? stick my hand in a grizzly bear's mouth? >> i'm telling you, you can do that. >> oh, yeah, how about that.

( ticking ) >> i'm lesley stahl. >> i'm bill whitaker. >> i'm anderson cooper. >> i'm scott pelley. those stories and more, tonight, on "60 minutes." ( ticking )

>> pelley: the president on wednesday emerged from the white house hotspot to announce what he called a "cure" for covid-19. with 23 days before the election, mr. trump said he became aware of the cure after ordering his doctors to give him an experimental drug. his idea, he said. no one but president trump is claiming a cure for covid-19. but, labs around the world are racing to develop therapeutic drugs to reduce the severity of the disease. we're going to tell you about some of the most promising leads for treating covid-19, today. the president said this past week that we shouldn't be afraid of the virus. >> dr. david ho: well, i think we should be fearful of what

this virus could do to an infected person. over a million people have died. and over 200,000 americans have died. we have to give this virus its due respect. >> pelley: if you don't know the name david ho, your memory is too short. dr. ho led the team in the 1990s that created the cocktail of drugs that made h.i.v./aids survivable, even though there's still no vaccine. >> dr. ho: much of the world was going to be shut down. >> pelley: his lab at columbia university was still focused on h.i.v./aids, until covid-19. >> dr. ho: you could say it's now worse than ever, with about 100,000 new cases per day worldwide. so, we-- we don't have it under control. >> pelley: ho's team moved into dorms vacated by students who are studying at home, so they could work 24/7 on monoclonal antibodies-- a complex name for a simple idea.

a covid patient's immune system creates antibodies to attack the virus. those antibodies can be harvested, cloned and reproduced in the billions. >> dr. ho: for example, we could clone out 250-some antibodies from five infected persons, and then just systematically characterize them in the laboratory to see which ones have the best properties, in terms of neutralizing or inactivating the virus. >> pelley: how effective have monoclonal antibodies been? >> dr. ho: they are promising. there ruers have developed antibody. one is lilly-- eli lilly and company-- and the other is regeneron. and the president received the regeneron product. these are very powerful antibodies. and both lilly and regeneron have reported promising

preliminary results. but i must emphasize, preliminary. >> trump: it's a cure. for me, i walked in. i didn't feel good. a short 24 hours later, i was feeling great. >> pelley: it was antibody therapy from regeneron pharmacuticals that mr. trump called a cure. but the facts are these: last month, regeneron and the eli lilly company reported early results. in a small group of 275 patients, regeneron showed a modest reduction in virus; in 452 patients, lilly's antibodies reduced hospitalization from 6% to under 2%. what will it take to have more confidence in the results for monoclonal antibodies? >> dr. ho: well, these are ongoing studies. they, i think, are going to enroll thousands of thesepaents eyred the clinic in june, july. so we need to give it more time.

>> pelley: antibody clones are grown in massive tanks. brewing millions of doses would be a vast industrial project, and expensive. but if an antibody therapy is approved, each patient would likely need only one dose. >> dr. ho: the antibodies are generally just given as an infusion of over ten, 15 minutes intravenously. >> pelley: is it clear that the monoclonal antibodies are safe? >> dr. ho: well, these two that have been administered now to a number of people, they don't seem to have any side effects. and in general, monoclonal antibody therapies for cancer, inflammation and other diseases have been quite safe. >> pelley: now, labs, including david ho's, are searching thousands of natural antibodies from patients to find lethal combinations against the virus. as a physician, if you could only have one, would you rather have a vaccine or an effective therapeutic? >> dr. james pruden: i'd rather have an effective therapeutic.

>> pelley: foc kthis medical director of emergency preparedness for st. joseph's hospital in paterson, new jersey. last spring, his hospital was overwhelmed with 456 covid patients at once. the first one admitted was dr. pruden himself. >> dr. pruden: i got admitted to my own hospital. i'm one of the luckiest men on earth to be in a hospital where people are geared to do this-- to resuscitate people and keep people alive. >> pelley: the rate of death in the united states seven months ago was double what it is today, in part because, in the early days, so little was understood. >> dr. pruden: so it was a question of doing what you could, keeping this body alive while you tried to find out what protocol was working. and they did an excellent job. i was intubated twice, and i

spent 31 days in the intensive care unit. lost about 80 pounds, could not roll over in bed on my own, could not sit up in bed on my own, and had the constant sense that "i am not getting enough air." >> pelley: and there was a sense of being hungry for oxygen. >> dr. pruden: oh, my goodness. yes. >> pelley: like drowning? >> dr. pruden: this was a question of, my body, no matter what i do, is not pulling in enough air, and the oxygen that they're providing me is not giving me enough air, and i need air, i need air, i need air. >> pelley: dr. pruden was so sick, briefly, word spread in the hospital that he had died. in those early days, doctors didn't understand that the virus attacks the whole body, and many become critically ill ten days after symptoms start. >> dr. kevin tracey: they can go from being pretty healthy to needing a ventilator in minutes to hours. >> pelley: dr. kevin tracey

heads the feinstein institutes for medical research at new york's largest private hospital system, northwell health. why do those patients crash? >> dr. tracey: this is still an area of debate, but there seems to be several things going on. one is, the virus grows very quickly in cells like endothelial cells, which lie in blood vessels, and this can cause a massive amount of cell death and blood clotting. blood clotting can cause strokes and dysfunction in the brain and heart. these things, the virus and the tissue damage, can activate an immune response. >> pelley: the immune response in some spins out of control. the body produces far too many chemicals, called cytokines. >> dr. tracey: cytokines are made by the immune system; are not, by definition, bad. low levels of cytokines are important for wound healing and for immune-- protective immune responses. the problem comes when the brakes on the system fail. >> pelley: do we understand why that occurs?ot

understand why that occurs. >> pelley: over-production of cytokines is lethal, which is why the president and others are given steroids, to pump the brakes on the immune response. steroids are among the therapies being studied in 3,500 clinical trials around the world, all targeting covid-19. >> dr. christina brennan: in ten weeks, we enrolled 1,200 patients into clinical trials. we would enroll that in a year for all of our trials. >> pelley: dr. christina brennan oversees northwell health's clinical trials, which include another drug giv to the 09 c, itvepedn waffectiv it was tried on and, again, wasn't useful. but with covid-19, the results may be different. >> dr. brennan: so far, it really has shown that it's, you know, decreasing the hospital

length of stay, but we haven't seen other effects that would say that it would cure covid-19. >> pelley: so it seems to make the patients better, makes their stay in the hospital a few days, perhaps, shorter, but hasn't been shown to eradicate the virus? >> dr. brennan: correct. so, covid-19 trials... >> pelley: dr. brennan told us she had patients in a ten-day treatment of remdesivir, but some went home in less than ten days. encouraging, but not a magic bullet. how long will it be before a person contracts covid, they go to their doctor, they get a prescription, and they go home? >> dr. tracey: i think that could happen within the next year or two. i think that day is inevitable. i think it's also inevitable that we will have a vaccine. i don't know the time course of either. it's like a horse race. there will be a winner of the race, but to pick on one now is very, very difficult. >> pelley: and whatever drugs are lomay not work long.

the virus mutates constantly. dr. david ho told us, already, the virus has many strains. >> dr. ho: i think that's just like what we learned from h.i.v. the virus will adapt and we will have to keep up with the virus. >> pelley: dr. ho told us he has never seen the world's labs dedicat themselves to a single disease as they have for covid-19. but every doctor we asked, answered this question the same way. would you rather have a mask or a vaccine? >> dr. brennan: a mask tn is being tvaines illion d and you'd erk.why? >> dr. brennan: with our social distancing, wearing of the mask, the data's already showing that it's been effective. it's, you know, cost savings, and it's effective. and it can go a long way. >> pelley: for a year or two, the mask will likely be the most

effective tool. there's no cure, and no way to know whether the president was helped by remdesivir or monoclonal antibodies or steroids. >> trump: and i went, and i wasn't feeling so hot. and within a very short period of time, they gave me regeneron. it's called regeneron. and other things, too. but i think this was the key. but they gave me regeneron. and it was like, unbelievable. i felt good immediately. >> pelley: we don't know why mr. trump settled on the regeneron antibody therapy as his 2017 financial disclosure form, regeneron is listed as a but need in his 2020 disclosure. ( cheers and applause ) what did your colleagues here learn from treating you? >> dr. pruden: one of the things i've learned, they learned, is

not to give up. ( cheers and applause ) >> pelley: dr. james pruden, director of emergency preparedness at st. joseph's in new jersey, was released after 33 days. he had to learn to walk again in physical therapy. >> dr. pruden: it felt like love. and you never knew so many people cared. you know what i mean? that it was important to them that you come out. that's what it felt like. >> pelley: dr. pruden, and others, told us the medical community is much better prepared now in case of another surge in the fall. >> dr. pruden: we're a lot smarter than we were seven months ago. we are still not out of the woods. >> pelley: as a physician and as a patient, what do you say to your medical colleagues about this going forward? >> dr. pruden: what i say to the medical colleagues is, learn resilience. maintain physical strength. and your cognition.

think. problem-solve. it's not woe is me, but okay, how can i do it better the next time? and we can do it. there's strength in this community, there's strength in the world around us. look at that strength and build on it. ( ticking )

>> stahl: with the president now infected with the novel coronavirus, there isn't mun this election year that can be described as "normal." but among the most abnormal is that a group of lifelong republicans-- political strategists for republican candidates for the last 30 years-- have banded together to mount a rogue offensive aimed at defeating the sitting president of their own party. they call themselves the lincoln project, named for the "party of lincoln," which they allege has gone so dangerously astray under ppresident donald trump that they've decided to take the strategic and ad-making firepower they've trained for years on democrats, and turn it against their own. and the president's bout with covid-19 is not slowing them down. >> narrator: how would you rate your response to this crisis? >> trump: i'd rate it a 10. >> stahl: some of the most gut-punching, bare-knuckled, and most widely-viewed anti-trump

ads of this election season... >> narrator: trump failed america. >> stahl: ...have not come from the biden campaign. >> dan barkhuff: i'm a pro-life, gun-owning combat veteran. >> stahl: they've come from the lincoln project, trying to convince fellow republicans... >> narrator: he's a draft dodger -in-chief, who despises the men and women he supposedly leads. >> stahl: ...to elect a democrat. >> narrator: it's time for decency. it's time for joe biden. ♪ don't cry for me >> stahl: and this week, they pounced with a biting ad... ♪ the truth is i will infect you ♪ >> stahl: ...a parody of the hit "evita," that's gone viral. ♪ i broke my promise won't keep my distance ♪ >> steve schmidt: we are in a war for the soul of this country. >> stahl: steve schmidt, one of the founders of the lincoln project, is a longtime republican strategist who worked in the george w. bush white

house, and ran john mccain's 2008 presidential campaign. how did serious republicans decide to go rogue? >> schmidt: we all had a conviction that there are millions of republicans who look at this debacle and reject it. and what we thought we could do is talk to those voters, in the language and the iconography that they understand, connect with them, and persuade them, many of them, to vote for the democratic nominee for the first time in their lives. >> stahl: have you lost friends over this? >> schmidt: for sure. of course. >> stahl: he launched the lincoln project super pac in december, with seven co- founders, including rick wilson, media consultant and ad maker for republicans like rudy guiliani and marco rubio; veteran republican strategist john weaver, who also worked with mccain and john kasich; george conway, conservative lawyer, and husband of kellyanne conway-- herself recently

diagnosed with covid-19; and reed galen, who worked on both george w. bush's campaigns. together, more than 200 years of republican party activism. have you given up your careers? >> schmidt: none of us will ever work in republican politics again. we-- we joke that, like, some of the explorers who came to the new world, they were incentivized by the captain, when he burned the ships, that there was-- ( laughs ) there was no return, going back. >> stahl: working from their homes across the country, the lincoln project team likes nautical analogies. they call themselves a pirate ship, with reed galen helping chart their course. >> reed galen: we do not represent any candidate. we don't represent any campaign. we don't represent any political party. so it allows us a great deal of freedom. you know, we sail the seas, and when the opportunity presents itself, you know, we unfurl the jolly roger and go to town. >> ready for four more years? >> stahl: these buccaneers have

made a name for themselves with malicious attack ads, churning out new ones almost daily, most released cost-free on social media. >> rick wilson: good, okay, ship it around to the group. let's get an approval on it. >> joey: okay. >> stahl: rick wilson is in charge of the ads. who are you aiming for? what kind of a voter? >> wilson: so, those independent-leaning men, those college-educated republicans, the suburban republican women. we understand where these voters are, we understand who they are and how they think. and lesle, it's a game of small numbers. i mean, donald trump won this election by 77,000 votes in three states. >> stahl: you basically have endorsed joe biden. >> galen: we have. we have endorsed joe biden. yes. >> stahl: it feels like, i'm sure, to the other republicans, as-- as a total betrayal? >> galen: republicans can call us, you know, betrayers of the faith all they want. we go-- we sleep well at night. >> stahl: john weaver feels it's the party that's betrayed him. >> john weaver: i mean, look, lesley, we've gone from caring about character, rule of law, defending the constitution, a

cogent national security policy, free trade-- where are all those issues? imagine if you had traveled the country for 30 years, fighting for republican principles, and you learn it was all a lie. no one cares about all the issues that we fought for. >> stahl: how painful is it for you to turn against the republican party? do you ever sit around and talk about-- you're repudiating your life, in a way? >> weaver: yeah, of course we do. i mean-- i mean, we're busy, but there are moments of melancholy about it. no doubt. >> narrator: it's morning again in america. >> stahl: one of the most effective political ads ever was ronald reagan's "mor i amer" om984. narrator: this afternoon... >> stahl: in may, the lincoln project made a veroriginal on is head-- adding the letter "u" to morning. >> narrator: there's mourning in america.

today, more than 60,000 americans have died from a deadly virus donald trump ignored. >> stahl: the day it was released, the ad got more than half a million views. among them, the president, who unleashed a tweetstorm at 12:46 a.m., calling the lincoln project "losers." >> reporter: mr. president, do you want to make any comment about this lincoln project ad? >> trump: yeah, no, i saw it. it's a group of major losers. they're republican losers. and they should call it the "losers project." okay, thanks. >> galen: the president attacked all of us by name. called us losers. and, we raised $2 milln in 48 hours. >> stahl: so he's helping you? >> galen: he bought us instant credibility. >> stahl: and gave them a rategy-- >> narrator: here's what trump's own people are saying about him... >> stahl: ...create ads deliberately designed... >> narrator: "he's an idiot." john kelly, trump's chief of staff. >> stahl: ...to get under the president's skin. >> john bolton: i don't think he's fit for office. >> trump: i have the most loyal people. >> galen: we have a standing buy on fox news in washington, d.c. with "fox and friends," "tucker

carlson" and "sean hannity," every night. >> stahl: is that because he watches? >> galen: yes. because we know he's in the residence with his super tivo, watching. >> stahl: why is provoking him a good strategy? >> wilson: every time donald trump loses his mind and throws things at the wall because a lincoln project ad is up, that takes the whole campaign off track. there's one thing you never get back in a campaign. that's a lost day. >> stahl: are you concerned that you're stooping to the president's level of being mean? >> wilson: i hope so. ( laughs ) there's always a reflexive sort of do-gooder instin to sa "o i hate negativs.eople do hat. but negative ads work. what do you need in the short term? >> mike madrid: i need senior messaging for florida. >> stahl: last month, the lincoln project got their staff tested for covid, and moved them from around the country into temporary headquarters in utah. >> wilson: one of the reasons we're here... >> stahl: we joined them for their first tv interview as a group-- remotely.

you're a pod. you're a bubble. >> galen: we're a pod. >> stahl: you're like the n.b.a. >> galen: yes, except-- >> wilson: not as tall or athletic. ( laughter ) >> madrid: if we're going to go in north carolina, now's the time to do it, because-- >> stahl: much of the focus here in the home stretch is on this team, led by mike madrid, former political director of the california republican party. they run the day-to-day strategy and ad targeting in an expanding number of battleground states. >> madrid: we've been focused like a laser beam on certain segments of the republican electorate. >> stahl: what about ads specifically for republican women? alytically has proven the best is an ad called "memories," which is an ad that speaks to the loss of the normalcy of life during covid. >> narrator: these are the memories covid took from us: a child's birthday. >> madrid: we find that women move off of donald trump first, and then, often, their husband will follow behind them. >> narrator: covid has robbed... >> stahl: they're targeting covid ads to seniors, too;

while they say "mourning in america" continues to be effective with voters in hard-hit rust belt counties. military-themed ads work across the republican spectrum. and, they're playing up reports that the president called fallen soldiers "losers" and "suckers." >> woman: i think that there is a play there for suburban moms. >> stahl: with the help of data analysts, including one who'd worked in major league baseball... >> analyst: it's certainly the least impactful. >> stahl: they are trying to take advantage of a shift they're seeing in the republican landscape. >> madrid: the real dividing line in the republican party is between college-educated and non-college-educated voters. and what we're seeing is, when donald trump starts to push messages like law and order, or defends, you know, the confederate flags and confederate monuments, he does seem to be able to coalesce a small number of non-college- educated workers in the rust belt states. but at the same time, he's pushing white, college-educated workers in the sun belt states

out of his column. >> stahl: it's a reverse twist on the old sothern strategy, where republicans used racist appeals to attract white voters in the south, and they're trying to capitalize on it. >> madrid: what we see in the south is more and more people in high-tech industries saying, "this is a politics that i reject." >> stahl: so, where are you most focused then? are you focused in the north rust belt? or in the sun belt? >> madrid: yes. >> galen: both. ( laughter ) >> wilson: yes. >> narrator: this fall, the lincoln project... >> stahl: and they're also focused on republican senators, attacking them brutally on their fealty to president trump. >> narrator: maine deserves a leader. not a trump stooge. >> lindsey graham: i am all in. >> stahl: they've spent more than a million and a half dollars just against lindsey graham... >> graham: we'll wait 'til the next election. >> narrator: lindsey graham has told us who he is. >> stahl: ...attacking him for his flip-flop on filling the supreme court vacancy. >> graham: and you could use my words against me, and you'd be absolutely right. >> laura ingraham: don't be fooled-- the lincoln project wasn't founded by principled

conservatives. >> stahl: the lincoln project has become a lightning rod for criticism from trump allies... >> lou dobbs: what a nasty bunch of son-of-a-guns. >> stahl: ...for being traitors, mercenaries for taking large donations from democrats, and, in this just to maintain their relevance. and i'm going to quote, "they're failed strategists who are doing this for the money." >> wilson: the easiest way in the world for a republican strategist to make money right now is to shut up and say nice things about donald trump. so, clearly, we're in the wrong line of work. >> stahl: but they've also drawn fire from some on the left, for their own role in creating theaw decry. do you bear any responsibility, you personally, for bringing the country to where it is? >> schmidt: when i look at the party and i see what it's become, i think that i was naive about how deeply embedded the racism issue was in the party. >> stahl: do you feel at all

that you're making amends? >> wilson: in all politics, you can look back on things with-- with honor, or regret, or what have you. i'll think i'll look back on this-- i think all of us will look back on this, as something we did in the cause of the country. >> stahl: they've raised more than $60 million thus far... >> madrid: write that out. >> stahl: and they're convinced that if they get just 4% of republicans to switch sides, they'll succeed in their goal of defeating donald trump. >> stahl: what about the insult that everything you're doing is just playing to the choir? >> wilson: well that's because-- >> stahl: just reaching trump haters. they already hate him. >> schmidt: i think that we have hurt him. we have cut him. we have defined him. we have provoked him. there was not a glove proverbially laid on him for a really long time, and i think we're amongst the first groups to effectively do that. >> stahl: well, you know, you say that, and he still has 90% of the republicans, every poll you see.

he could win. >> galen: well, sure. yeah. >> wilson: of course he could. donald trump could win. this is why, you know, we don't sleep a lot, and why we're constantly pushing to expand our envelope, because you can't take chances with donald trump. we're not out of this fight 'til the fight is done. ( ticking ) >> who is the voice behind the lincoln project's viral social media posts? go to 60minutesovertime.com.

( ticking ) >> whitaker: when lewis and clark first encountered grizzly bears, there may have been 100,000 of them in the american west, from what is now canada all the way down to mexico.

grizzlies are among the most fearsome predators on the planet, so for the next 150 years, they were systematically exterminated by settlers, ranchers, and farmers who saw them as a threat to their lives and livelihoods. by the 1960s, there were just a few hundred left in the lower 48 states. in 1975, grizzly bears were among the first animals to be protected under the endangered species act. and what's happened since, especially in the state of montana, is a story both of conservation and conflict. ever been face-to-face with a grizzly? neither had we. >> erik wenum: ready? >> whitaker: yeah. in the swan mountains of northwestern montana, we're carrying bear spray and following state bear specialist erik wenum and his colleague milan vinks deep into the woods. >> wenum: ( whistles ) hey! >> whitaker: wenum's checking one of several traps- called

snares- >> wenum: oh, there's a bear. >> whitaker: --that he has baited with beaver meat. >> wenum: grizzly bear. >> whitaker: hear that? >> wenum: the closer we get, the more agitated she's going to become, so we'll kind of be quiet-- get a good weight assessment on her, and then we'll just drift right back out, okay? >> whitaker: i'm with you. >> wenum: all right. you're okay. ( growling ) you're all right, you're okay, you're okay. ( growling ) you're all right. you're all right. >> whitaker: after the wire snare around its wrist stops the first charge at wenum, the grizzly makes another effort to get at our cameraman, lee. wenum yeah, you're all right. all right, we'll drift out. >> whitaker: you have an estimate of how big that bear is? how much do you think she

weighs? >> wenum: i think it's right around 300 pounds. >> whitaker: that's mid-sized for a grizzly. they can weigh as much as 1,000 pounds and stand nine feet tall on their hind legs. >> wenum: we're going to mix a little bit of medetomidine. >> whitaker: wenum and vinks mix a cocktail of veterinary sedatives and load them into a dart gun. >> whitaker: you have the dart, i have the bear spray, we're ready. >> wenum: there you go, we are set. >> whitaker: vinks carries a shotgun loaded with lethal ammunition, just in case. wenum insists that neither the tranquilizer nor the snare do any lasting harm, and that he needs both as part of a project to attach radio collars to grizzlies and track their population's recovery. >> hilary cooley: to me, having a grizzly bear population means that the ecosystem is intact. >> whitaker: hilary cooley is the wildlife biologist in charge

of grizzly bear recovery for the u.s. fish and wildlife service. >> cooley: grizzly bears were listed in 1975 as a threatened species in the lower 48 states. >> whitaker: thought their survival was in jeopardy? >> cooley: yeah. their range had been reduced by about 98%. >> whitaker: two places grizzlies hadn't been wiped out were glacier and yellowstone national parks, where a few hundred were protected from eradication. so, starting 45 years ago, the recovery effort focused on millions of acres around those two parks. >> cooley: they've probably more than tripled their numbers, and their range now is more than double what it was at the time of listing. >> whitaker: since listed as an endangered species back in 1975, the grizzly bear population in this region has made a remarkable comeback-- a true success story. but at the same time, another population has also been growing around here-- the human population- with houses and subdivisions built

right next to the wilderness. and that's often where the trouble starts. montana's human population has grown by 250,000 since grizzlies were protected in 1975. most of those people live on valley floors or in foothills not far from bear country. >> bryce andrews: when you can look at the telemetry from their collars, you realize that at night, this valley belongs to bears. a bear has walked-- i've seen the telemetry-- through the spot where you and i are sitting right now. and we are within 100 feet of my house. >> whitaker: bryce andrews is a rancher, author, and field director for a non-profit called people and carnivores, which tries to minimize human-bear conflict. he's seen all the videos of grizzlies going through trash cans, raiding chicken coops and backyard bird-feeders, even the fridge. they are true omnivores, and really hungry from the moment

they emerge from hibernation each spring. >> andrews: anything with caloric value, a bear will turn it into what they need to survive. >> whitaker: so they will eat any and everything. >> andrews: any and everything. they'll come for bird seed. they'll come for the residue on a barbecue. >> whitaker: it's their appetites that get them into trouble with humans. >> andrews: absolutely. ( growling ) >> whitaker: the greatest trouble comes when grizzlies go after livestock or crops that ranchers and farmers count on for their livelihood. >> cooley: bears can be really hard to live with. they kill livestock. there are producers who have 20, 30 cows a year killed by grizzly bears. and so, for those folks-- >> whitaker: sounds like a lot. >> cooley: it's a lot. it's a big impact. >> greg schock: the bears probably knocked down between 20% and 25% of my corn that i couldn't harvest every year. >> whitaker: greg schock farms in montana's mission valley. he says grizzlies live in the woods about a mile from his home.

>> schock: we had 18 several years in a row in our cornfield and nobody believed that i had that many until they put cameras up and actually had footage of them. >> whitaker: 18 in your cornfield? >> schock: in a 100-acre cornfield, yeah. >> whitaker: with so many grizzlies around- now nearly 2,000-- the federal government would like to remove some populations from the endangered species list. so far, court challenges from environmental groups and native americans have prevented that. you think it is possible to coexist? >> schock: i think we have to. if we don't coexist, what's-- who's leavin the bears aren't leaving, and we aren't leaving. so... >> whitaker: so, bryce andrews' organization does things like install high-voltage electric fences around fields, like this 30-acre melon farm. grizzlies are smart enough to "test" the fences, and sometimes even get around them. >> andrews: we've got an electrified gate, here, which is off right now. >> whitaker: andrews has an

electric fence around his backyard chicken coop. but not all of his neighbors do. >> andrews: generally, when there are unprotected chickens in grizzly habitat, it's only a matter of time before something goes wrong. >> whitaker: the grizzly bear will win. >> andrews: they'll win, and see, they have these phenomenal noses. they smell everything. >> whitaker: including neighborhood trash cans. if a grizzly develops a taste for garbage, gets accustomed to being near people, and then teaches those bad habits to her cubs, it can prove fatal. bears that get into such trouble are often trapped by state bear managers. at first, they're relocated to remote regions and released. but, if they keep coming back, federal official hilary cooley may need to authorize killing them. >> cooley: ultimately, that's my decision. >> whitaker: what's that like? >> cooley: it's the worst part of the job. it's-- but it's necessary.

>> whitaker: why "necessary"? >> cooley: if we think it's a threat to human safety-- for example, a food-conditioned bear-- bears can kill people. and it's something we don't mess with. if there's a threat to human safety, we remove it right off the bat. >> whitaker: and remove, you-- >> cooley: euthanize. >> whitaker: euthanize. just last year, she had to authorize the killing of nearly 50 grizzlies. the grizzly bear we saw erik wenum tranquilize in the swan mountains may never have seen a human being before, let alone gotten into trouble. do you know, is it a male or a female? >> wenum: i don't yet. >> whitaker: how long will this grizzly be out? >> wenum: about an hour and... >> whitaker: about an hour. >> wenum: 20 minutes... hopg for a female?hy were you >> wenum: we want to radio- collar females. females drive the system. they-- they really do. >> vinks and wenum: one, two, three. >> whitaker: will you collar

him? >> wenum: we collar some males. we're not going to collar this guy, though. >> whitaker: boy, look at those claws. the forest becomes a field hospital, as they attach monitors and even an oxygen bottle to the grizzly. >> wenum: so he's at 88% oxygen. i like it when it's 90%, 95%, so i want to get him up. >> whitaker: we measured every part of the bear. >> vinks: five and a quarter, okay. >> whitaker: blood is drawn, tufts of hair pulled for d.n.a. analysis. >> wenum: i'm going to call him a five-year-old bear, okay? so you can see, these are his incisors, and if you run your fingernail over the top, you can still feel some cusping. >> whitaker: tell me i can do this? stick my hand in a grizzly bear's mouth? >> wenum: i'm telling you, you can do that. >> whitaker: oh, yeah. how about that. less than an hour after being darted- a bit ahead of schedule-- the grizzly starts to

stir. he's moving a little bit over here. so he's starting to wake up-- >> wenum: okay. everybody, we're ready to go. you guys head on out. everybody go. >> whitaker: we didn't need to be told again. as we hustled out, wenum removed the hood from the bear's head, and hurried out himself. >> wenum: your first question'll be, "does that happen often?" ( laughter ) >> whitaker: yeah, when he was sniffing up, that was time to go-- >> wenum: when he was lifting his head, it's time to go. >> whitaker: it's time to go. we had about as safe an encounter with a grizzly bear as is possible to have. but with more people going deep into bear country, to hike or bike or camp or hunt, there are several decidedly unsafe encounters every year. >> anders broste: i didn't really get a warning, and all of a sudden there's a grizzly bear running at me. and in about probably less than a second, it was on me. >> whitaker: anders broste was hunting for deer and elk with a friend in the wilderness north of his montana home on november 11, 2018 when he stumbled upon a grizzly who'd

been dozing in the snow. >> broste: it bit my arm here, kind of thrashed it around. and then bit my leg here. started pulling on me and kind of tossing me around. and then it just dropped my foot and ran off. >> whitaker: do you have any idea why he didn't just finish you off or drag you off? >> broste: nope. >> whitaker: broste's hunting partner dan reached him within a minute or two. luckily, they had a cellphone signal to call 911. state bear specialist erik wenum was one of the first responders on the scene, and he snapped a photo of a very large pawprint in the snow. they had to chopper you out? >> broste: two choppers. >> whitaker: how long were you in the hospital? >> broste: i was in the hospital for six days. in that six days, i had three different surgeries. my arm was broken, my thumb was broken, and my hand was dislocated. my foot was basically held to my-- my ankle with soft tissue.

>> whitaker: this is the grizzly that attacked anders broste, in a photo taken four years earlier when state bear managers trapped and released him. d.n.a. samples proved the match. so, the bear that attacked you is still out there. >> broste: yep. >> whitaker: does that bother you? you okay with that? >> broste: i'm okay with it. i was intruding. so, to me, the bear's response was not any more inappropriate than what somebody else's response would be if i trespassed into their home. >> whitaker: broste, who's the co-founder of a company that makes mountain bikes, is back on his, after many months of tough rehab. and he says he and his friend dan plan to go hunting again this november 11th, the anniversary of the attack. >> broste: i think it's part of what makes montana wild. if we didn't have grizzly bears, like, it'd be a little less wild. they're a part of our ecosystem. they play a role in everything that's going on around heank th.

i'd-- i'd prefer not to see one that close again, though. ( laughs ) ( ticking )

>> pelley: hurricane delta was the sixth storm to spin into louisiana this season, a record- breaking 10th to make landfall in the united states, and the 25th named storm of this atlantic hurricane season. with the proliferation of hurricanes and tropical storms that have intensified rapidly in the east, and wildfires in the west, fueled in part by the hottest september on record, one can't help but wonder-- as we did in a story last week-- if americans have the will, the wherewithal, or even the time to address climate change. i'm scott pelley. we'll be back next week. but now, stick around for a special edition of "60 minutes." ti

captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. captioned by media access group at wgbh

access.wgbh.org captioning funded by cbs and ford. we go further, so you can. >> eited. >> we have been following a cutting edge clinical trial at the national institutes of health using gene therapy on a brutally painful disease, sickle-cell anemia. you'll hear the surprising results that one day may lead to cures for thousands of other diseases. >> to see that emerging not just as hoped-for advances, but real data showing cures for people... >> you just used the "curing" word. ( laughs ) you're willing to say that? >> this looks like a cure. ( ti