captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. gwen ifill is away. on the newshour tonight, the campaigns respond to the first head-to-head battle between hillary clinton and donaldn trump, while we put some of the biggest moments into context. also ahead this tuesday, bringing the music back: how boston public schools are expanding arts education for their students. >> our job is to make sure our students see art, understand art, appreciate it, and if theye are passionate enough, created it. >> woodruff: plus, explaining the disconnect of white working class americans from the rest of the country, and how it's playing into this election. >> they feel like their communities have really been struggling for 20-30 years and

no one has really cared and trump is the first person to at least see these communities.mm >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.

>> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: >> this program was madepr possible by the corporation for public broadcasting.ca and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it's the debate "day-after," and the two presidential candidates have decidedly different takes on how things went. john yang begins our coverage, with this report. >> yang: 12 hours after stepping off the debate stage, hillary clinton was back on her campaign plane sounding upbeat. >> well, we had a great, great time last night. the real point is about temperament and fitness and qualifications to hold the most important, hardest job in the world, and i think people saw last night some very clear differences between us.

>> yang: clinton said some of donald trump's debate statements were demonstrably untrue and dismissed one of his grievancesv about their face-off. >> anybody who complains about the microphone is not having a good night. >> yang: trump told reportersre after the debate his mic was defective and suggested it was on purpose. he also claimed moderator lestee holt of nbc news was tougher on him than on clinton. trump insists he came out ahead anyway. >> i was asked about my tax return, which i've told about 500 times. i think i did really well in answering those questions, butes those questions are not answerable in a positive light. >> yang: last night clinton opened up a new front in the battle for women's votes.te at the end of the debate, she spoke of the case of a former miss universe. >> he loves beauty contest, supporting them and hangingor around them, and he called this woman miss piggy. then he called her miss housekeeping because she was

latina. donald, she has a name. her name is alicia machado, and she has become a u.s. citizen, and you can bet she's going to vote this november. >> oh, really? okay, good. >> you are the new missedmi universe. the clinton campaign quickly released a web video of machado of a clinton supporter criticizing trump. >> hello, miss piggy. hello, miss housekeeping. >> yang: this morning the republican nominee fired back oo fox news. >> she gained a massive amountmo of weight. it was a real problem, not only that but her attitude. we had a real problem with her. >> good afternoon, miami. >> yang: this afternoon at a town hall meeting, trumptr mentioned the debate only briefly. >> it was an interesting evening certainly and big league, definitely big league. >> yang: in north carolina, an energized clinton relived a memorable moment from thent debate. >> at one point he was kind of digging me for spending time off

the campaign trail to get prepared, and i said, yeah, youe know what, i did prepare, and i'll tell you something else i prepared for, i prepared to be president of the united states,u and i think that's good. >> yang: early ratings show that more than 81 million people tuned in last night, a record for a presidential debate. for the pbs "newshour," i'm john yang.h >> woodruff: we'll take a closer look at some of last night'sa debating points and hear from a representative of each campaigna after the news summary. in the day's other news, the u.s. senate failed to advance a spending bill to keep the b federal government running past friday, when the fiscal year ends. democrats demanded money to hela flint, michigan, with its lead- contaminated water, and a dozen conservative republicansns defected. charges of election-year politics dominated the debate. >> after labor day, it was pretty clear what the way forward was, but they've sort oa

dragged everybody around here for multiple weeks, obviously interested in producing some kind of shutdown scenario. >> all we want to do is help the people of flint. this shouldn't be hard. we should be able to find a path forward to fund the government and help the people of flint. there's no excuse for leaving the people of flint michigan behind. e >> woodruff: g.o.p. leaders have promised to address the flint water issue after the election, in a separate piece ofon legislation. in syria, the government offensive to retake all of the besieged city of aleppo shifted into a deadly new gear. ground troops and armor began moving in, as we hear from alex, thomson of independent television news. >> reporter: backed by the relentless air strikes, several sources are confirming tonight that syrian government ground forces have attacked into rebel- held east aleppo from the north and the south today. ( sirens )

the white helmets civil defense rescue teams on the streets of the east of the city, the rebel held area, to rescue those caught in the air strikes ands shell fire, as they do night and day. and civilians, 250,000 of them, caught up in the wider effects of warfare and siege in eastts aleppo. >> ( translated ): i don't know what to say. our hearts are full of fear. may god hold the tyrantsea accountable. my oldest son is six years old. i wish for security for country. just like we had it before. to be able to move freely. >> reporter: what's at stake is huge: if government forces with russian support take these streets, syria's biggest city falls. and the west's dream of toppling president assad will be over.e but taking this vast urban warren would need thousands ofs soldiers. more likely assad's forces will

pound the area into submission from afar as they did in homs and parts of damascus, as their but civilians in government-helr west aleppo are also being attacked, seeminglyy indiscriminately, by rebels from the east. this was hamdania district today filmed by russian state tv. >> ( translated ): gunmen fire at us regularly, we live like we are in a tinderbox and pray every day that the syrian armynd holds the line. >> reporter: although pro- government civilians face the terror of bullets, mortars and shells. in the rebel-held east, they face the russian and syrian air force: incendiary bombs, bunker-busting munitions andai barrel bombs, as well as shells, mortars and bullets.ndhe >> woodruff: the offensive against aleppo has effectively ended any hope of restoring a cease-fire. taiwan was hit today by its h third typhoon this month.ph

the storm swept across the island with winds topping 100 miles per hour, heading for aa second landfall, in southeastern china. the winds and heavy rain tore down signs, ripped away parts of buildings, and knocked a tour bus sideways. four people died, and three million homes lost power. in the u.s., cedar rapids, iowa appears to have escaped majorto flooding, after a rain-swollen river finally crested. temporary barriers kept themp water out for the most part, today. some neighborhoods did flood, in the state's second-largest city. officials said it could have been much worse, but the crest was well below the devastating levels in 2008. there's word that more than 90% of the world's population now lives in areas with excessive air pollution. what's more, the world health organization reports says it's m causing some 6.5 million deaths5 every year, from strokes to heart disease to lung cancer.

>> for us, it is extremely important to put this data outside, for politicians to understand, for citizens to be aware of this, for countries tos take action and for all of us to move into promoting some interventions that will cause reduction of air pollution. >> woodruff: the u.n. agency says southeast asia, the eastern mediterranean and the western pacific regions are the worst affected. a former al-qaeda rebel in mali was convicted today of destroying historic tombs.is the international criminal court returned a guilty verdict fored ahmad al-faqi al-mahdi, in its first conviction for attacks on cultural sites. al-mahdi admitted to demolishing nine mausoleums during a rebel occupation of timbuktu, in 2012k the islamists were ultimately driven out. in economic news, the world trade organization warned that global trade is slowing to its weakest pace since 2009.

the group cited what it called "creeping protectionism." and, wall street recouped some of monday's losses.ot the dow jones industrial averag gained 133 points to close at 18,228.. the nasdaq rose 48 points, and the s&p 500 added nearly 14. still to come on the newshour, fact checking the candidates and putting their talking points into context.ck clinton and trump strategists on last night's debate. bringing music back to boston schools, and much more. >> woodruff: last night's much- anticipated presidential debate saw record viewership and, at times, a raucous back-and-forth between the two candidates. but for all the spectacle, how

truthful were their claims and accusations? lisa desjardins reports, putting the debate in context. >> reporter: in 94 minutes last night, there were at least 94 needs for more information. let's start with an urgent headline right now. crime and race. >> you do stop-and-frisk, which worked very well. >> reporter: a reminder: "stop- and-frisk" is a police tactic allowing officers to pat down pedestrians as a way to fightic crime. donald trump defended it as bringing order. but... >> stop-and-frisk was ruled unconstitutional in new york, because it largely singled out black and hispanic young men.ar >> no, you're wrong. it went before a judge, who was a very against-police judge. it was taken away from her. >> reporter: in fact, trump was wrong. stop and frisk was ruled unconstitutional by one federal judge. but trump also had a point, in that no higher courts ever ruled: new york city leaders dropped the case. there was more.

>> when you have 3,000 shootings in chicago from january 1, when you have 4,000 people killed in chicago by guns, from the g beginning of the presidency of barack obama, his hometown, you have to have stop-and-frisk. >> reporter: those are shockingp numbers: first, have there been 3,000 shootings in chicago this year? actually there were more. according to the "chicago t tribune's" crime project, there have been 3,210 shooting victims this year.me and have 4,000 chicagoans been shot dead during the obamabe administration? that may be high-- the tribune has just over 3,100 gun deaths from 2009 through 2015, and some 400 more this year. as for clinton, she was on defense on trade and the massive deal known as the trans-pacifict partnership. >> i was against it once it was finally negotiated and the terms were laid out. i wrote about that in... >> you called it the gold

standard. i you called it the gold standard of trade deals. you said it's the finest deal you've ever seen. >> no. >> and then you heard what i said about it, and all of au sudden you were against it. >> reporter: in fact, four years ago, she did call the t.p.p. the "gold standard": >> this t.p.p. sets the gold standard in trade agreements to open free, transparent, fair trade the kind of environment that has the rule of law and a level playing field. >> reporter: now, the trans- pacific deal was still in outline form back then; clinton stresses that.re but, her words in 2012 were unequivocal in support of the idea. after t.p.p. was fully drafted, clinton pulled that support.n trade is a raw spot for voters this year. enter another controversial deal: nafta. >> i think my husband did a pretty good job in the 1990s.99 i think a lot about what worked and how we can make it work again...t >> well, he approved nafta... >> a million new jobs, aew balanced budget... >> he approved nafta, which is the single worst trade deal ever approved in this country. >> incomes went up for everybody.n

manufacturing jobs went up also in the 1990s, if we're actually going to look at the facts. >> reporter: like the candidates, economists disagree over how many jobs were created or lost by nafta.joby one widely cited study found itu wiped out up to 800,000 u.s. jobs but a pro-trade analysis suggested nafta had a role in creating several million jobs bs boosting trade with canada and mexico. neither side may be happy but the non-partisan congressional research service concluded nafta caused neither huge job losses nor gains. in the debate, trump gave a specific example of jobs going to mexico. >> so ford is leaving. you see that, their small car division leaving. thousands of jobs leaving michigan, leaving ohio. they're all leaving. >> reporter: ford, itself, called that "false." the company said u.s. workers will make two new cars in the plants that used to make small cars, tweeting: "there is no impact on u.s. jobs."s.

one final thing to discuss: taxes. >> you've got to ask yourself, why won't he release his tax returns? maybe he doesn't want theyb american people, all of youic watching tonight, to know that he's paid nothing in federal taxes, because the only years that anybody's ever seen were a couple of years when he had to turn them over to state t authorities when he was trying to get a casino license, and they showed he didn't pay anye, federal income tax. >> that makes me smart. >> reporter: clinton was referring to this story from "the washington post," whichhe found a 1981 casino filing showing trump paid nothing in taxes for two years. more context: while trump has railed against others' using tax loopholes, this was his first statement indicating he may have paid nothing in taxes himself. so that is plenty to chew on, as least until the next presidential debate in just under two weeks.ek for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins.

>> woodruff: and now to get some >> woodruff: and we'll be talking to two representatives from the campaigns. one of our guests is delayed. we'll be right back. tonight on pbs' "frontline," ann in-depth look at the two people who debated last night, donald trump and hillary clinton and what drives them.s the choice examines their background. it asks what has shaped them and asks why each wants to take on the presidency. >> hillary decided to fight. she took charge of her husband'n political comeback. >> hillary got very involved in the campaign. for all intents and purposes she was the campaign manager. >> one of her first moves, rebrand herself and become mrs. clinton. >> it was symbolic. i'm sure she had to swallow

hard, but it was just not worth trying to keep her last name at the expense of everything they wanted to achieve together. >> in order to avoid any problem and put it to rest, i will forever be known as hillary rodham clinton. >> she completely forfeited her own identity, at least physically, got rid of the glass, got her hair dye, started dressing at least modestly better, wore some make-up,, cultivated a little bit of a do you recall. l >> the road to being somebody in this society starts with education. >> the transformation was a surprise to some of those who had known her the longest. >> when she had to begin the change her appearance, dye her hair, lose a lot of weight, get rid of her glasses, not speak up, not be as much who she was, that hurt all of us. we all felt sad about that. it was hard. it was hard on us. it was hard on her. >> she formed an alliance with a

controversial political consultant from new york, dick morris. >> she has a wonderful instinct for the jugular. she felt that he had lost it because he wasn't tough enough, wasn't strong enough, and she reached out to me because she felt that i would be stronger and tougher. >> i think it only intensifiedt and began a lot of the characteristics that you sawyo from then on, that the ends justify the means, that we'll do what we have to do to win, turn to thetu dark art of politics to survive. >> he was seen for quite a long time as a punch line, the joke about the excesses and the failures of the 1980s, and he becomes, you know, a human shingle and a punch line. "the apprentice" turned all ofd that on its head. >> here we russia my city, where the wheels of the global economy never stop turning. ♪ money, money, must money, mon,

money ♪ >> he became seen as a credible business person with a track record, even though that's at odds with reality, and the guy who became a reality tv star vii "the apprentice" learned he could become a reality political star. who will succeed and who will fail and who will be the apprentice? >> for 14 seasons, millions of americans watched a carefully crafted donald trump. >> he's perfectly made up. he's perfectly coifed. he's perfectly lit. l he's in a high-back chair making tough decisions. what does he look like? he looks like a president. >> donald connected with the american public because they wanted to be like him. they aspired to be just like him. they wanted to see all the affluence, and he let them see it. he let them into every aspect of what it mend to be successful ie america. >> good morning. >> good morning. >> everybody's saying i should

run for president. let me ask you a question. should i run for president?t >> absolutely. >> as the show took off, trump again began to discuss a run for the white house. >> who would not vote for him? >> all right.t good. >> don't raise your hand. >> woodruff: i am joined nowe by the producer and director of the film, michael kirk. you are telling me this is your first choice look at the presidential candidates at the presidential candidates. what was different acted these t two? >> well, almost everything. usually you have two politicianp who you have a record to compare. you have a time frame to measure up against. what you have here is one of the most overexposed political figures, been on stage a long time, and one of the most overexposed celebrities of all time, donald trump, and they're side by side in chronology, but not in any other way, so when

the '60s happened, she's doing one thing, he's not doing one thing, he's doing somethinge' else. there's room for some comparisons, but mostly it's just so different becauseec they're so disliked. you've got the highest in negatives for both candidates of any campaign i remember, and it changed the nature of the way people answered our questionses when we were interviewing their closest friends.i >> woodruff: what do you mean?t >> they were just ready to dish, and they really came with a kind of sober reflection. we do two and a half hour, three-hour interviews with people. we did 25 for each side, and we got real close to a lot of people, and they all sat there through those long interviews and began to pour out their anxieties, their angst, their ambivalences about the two candidates. >> meaghan:.

>> woodruff: so these are twot people we've heard so much about by now. we think there couldn't be anything else out there we couldn't heard, and yet you think you got so...o >> i decided to just tell their stories. don't try to get too politicalti about it. don't try to balance things out too much. just go straightforward through trump, warts and all, and through hillary warts and all. it meant in some ways that we would end up spending a lot of time in the troubled dark spacee of things that have happened to them, everything from trump's divorce from ivanna and the headlines, and monica, gennifer flowers, all of that that's laid out in a way that i think fits because it starts with their stories when they were little children and moves right through it. and you're left with a sense of two people, two warriors, you saw them last night, real

fighters, but she is much more nicked up, much more beaten up by the negativity than he seems to be. >> woodruff: what surpriseduf you about the two?t >> the thing that surprised me most about him was that he's h very, very, very hungry for all of it. and he has been since he was a little kid. he flails when it's said he's not the great businessman he says he is. he's been schooled in the hard knocks of life by willie cone, but he's hungry. he really wants, this and he started in 1988. we found speeches that he gave in 1988 in new hampshire that you could play today and believe that they're the same speeches. >> woodruff: what about her,he hillary clinton? >> hillary was... the great mystery from hillary from my

point of view, i had no ideaid what a powerful force she was in 1969, '70 and '71678 she does the commencement speech in wellesley, she's in life magazine, was called by somes people a voice of a generation. she is really on the road. she's on that thin edge of the wedge of feminism in 1969 and 1970. she's a kind of person who is taken under their wing. she meets bill at yale and she goes to the watergate committeem and she works there. everybody thinks she's on herr way. suddenly she announces i'm going to arkansas to live with this bounder and we're going to get involved in politics. and everybody, everybody that we talked to said, how can this be? i think robert reich was heartbroken. you see him on camera sort of melt down we will living what that decision meant for her.

>> woodruff: you're setting up two stories we really want to hear. we'll be watching. michael kirk with "frontline," we thank you. and a reminder, "frontline" "the choice" 2016 premiers tonight on most pbs stations. >> woodruff: and now to get some post-debate reaction from both f the campaigns, we hear from two top political strategists, starting with the republican national committee's sean spicer. sean, welcome back to the "newshour." so what's your assessment of last night? how did mr. trump do? >> thanks, judy. i think he really was able to make that contrast with hillary clinton. last night donald trump had an a opportunity to present... to become that candidate of change and present himself as that, whereas hillary clinton was the candidate of the establishment and the status quo.uo if you were looking for a candidate that's going to brings change to washington, i thinko donald trump showed you last night that he's your candidate.

if you're ready for more of the same, i think hillary clinton made the case that she's been in washington for 30 years, and she can continue to deliver more of the same. >> woodruff: one of the thingsth he tweeted last night, and i'm quoting, "nothing on e-mails, nothing on the corrupt clinton foundation, and nothing on benghazi." some of his supporters are saying today that he should have brought these things up and he missed his opportunity. >> well, you're always going to go back after a debate and figure where you could have got additional points in or defended your record better. there is no situation in which you wouldn't do that.wo if you look at the overall tone and tenor of the debate. it was one after another withr donald trump. there was no follow-up on o hillary clinton and nothing about her record with respect te the clinton foundation, nothingg about benghazi, nothing about immigration, nothing against all the issues that were againstns them. you know, for all the whining they did the day before about the media's role in this, i think they definitely got their way. all of the questions seemed focus on donald trump. all of the follow-ups and

interruptions were against donald trump. she basically got a pass last night, but it is what it is. >> woodruff: so you're saying the moderating was unfair? >> no. it's not a question of fair or unfair. those are the facts. those are what they are. she was never intererupted once and asked about these scandals and issues concerning her record.. i'm not here to complain. i'm here to make sure everyone understands what happens. donald trump had a fullrs vettii of his record and she was basically give an pass on the issues of substance that matterr to voters where there's been a lot of concern on her record. >> woodruff: let me ask you about something she brought up or that he was asked about by lester holt, and that was his income taxes. hillary clinton said the few years that his forms have been made public, he did not pay federal income tax, and his answer was, "that makes me smart." do you think that's a goodhi message to send to the americanr people?le >> well, first, i think most americans are sitting back there saying, i want his accountant. you know, no one tries to figure

out how the may more taxes. we all pay a ton, whether it's sales taxes, utility tax, but the fact of the matter is she was trying to get at him. what she wanted to do was to avoid and pivot away from talking about the fact that donald trump's tax, noth matter what he pay, didn't hurt anybody, didn't compromise national security. the secret server that she hadha and the ability and the classified information that she took off for the secret server and e-mailed around potentially could have threatened nationalth security. other countries could have gotten it. she was doing everything she could to avoid talking about her own record.rd >> woodruff: let me ask you about something else, the trumpr campaign was saying that they, among other things, they clearly wanted to add in, bring in new voters, minorities, women, and then you had this series of comments about what donald trumn has said in the past about the former miss universe. hillary clinton raised it last l night. she said donald trump had called alicia machado miss piggy. today donald trump spoke aboutpo that and said that miss machado

had, "gained a massive amount of weight and that was a problem." is this something do you think he should be expanding on, talking about? >> well, look, he didn't bring this up. she did. lester holt did. she did. they went into this.th donald trump, as you said, went in talking about how to make america great again, how to bring jobs, how to change the regulatory system to allowll people to have better lives and make more money, how to provide better for their family, how to lift all people up in america.ic that's what he was doing last night. he was talking about policies and solutions to make the country better. she was digging up 20-year-oldr comments and quotes out of context saying this is what'sat happening. let's be honest about who was doing what. it was hillary clinton whont should have been there talking about her record as secretary oe state and two terms in the senate and 30 years in washington. instead of doing that, she was digging up quotes.uo you have to wonder if you have that kind of a resume and that few accomplishment, that tellste you where you are in this race. donald trump was the candidatee there talking about solutions and policies last night, not, hillary clinton.

>> woodruff: just quickly, he said going into this debate, he in a way took pride in the fact he didn't prepare a great deal. do you think that's the rightr approach for the next debate? >> well, first of all, he didn't say that. he didn't prepare in the sense that in the traditional sense of standing at podiums going back and forth, but he was clearly preparing. he spent a lot of time with senior advisers and economic advisers going over key policies and honing in on stuff. he was largely successful. you look at the online polls, the cnbc poll, the time poll, 1.4 million people weighed in on the time poll. he was the clear winner. the cnbc, almost 1 million people all favoring him. he took in $14 million in the past 24 hours, mostly in low dollars. what that tells you is his message of change is resonating. and that is what mostly matters is are people hearing what he's saying and want to be part of this team and cast their vote for him in november. and i think the evidence was pretty clear.

>> woodruff: we hear you saying that you raised some money. sean spicer with the rnc, we thank you. >> thanks, judy. >> woodruff: and now we turn to the democrats, joining me isin president' obama's 2008 campaign manager and now hillary clinton supporter david plouffe. david, welcome back to the program. what's your assessment of last night?me >> well, i think first debate was probably the most importantt moment for the rest of the campaign, and i think hillaryth clinton seized that moment. donald trump, i think donaldk trump had a good first ten or 15 minutes, and then he kind of lost his way and became unhinged. so i believe hillary clinton'sar got an edge in the race, so given that, the fact that donald trump squandered the moment. it wasn't just that he performed badly. we had a bad debate in 2012, the first one, i've been throughug good and bad, but we were in the lead and obama obama just had a bad performance. he didn't have a lot of bad moments. donald trump saying he was smart not to pay taxes, bragging about the fact that he exploitedlo

loopholes not to pay contractors, taking advantage oa the housing crisis, and i think this alicia machado incident that he doubled down on today will live on in the campaign. it's not just a bad night. i think he's going to have bad few days here. >> woodruff: at the same time, he continued the argument he's the change the country needs and politicians like hillary clinton who he said have been in officef 30, 35 years have messed thingsh up and the country needs somebody new.me did she have a good answer for that do you think? >> i think she did. i'm sure that will come up against in st. louis and i'll leave it to hillary clinton toto show how she's going to advance that ball, but i think part of it is donald trump is change,a but he's dangerous change. i worked in the white house.se i obviously support hillaryll clinton, but i can't fathom someone of that temperament anda decision making and what we've seen. we've never seen major party nominee be so substanceless, be confused. you know, mitt romney, john mccain, john kerry, al gore, these are serious people. and so again, i think that's

going to be a difference in this race. i think he has a feeling. i've always thought his feeling on his vote was quite a bit lower than hillary clinton's.n i think she's got more vote to gain of what's left out there.th i don't think he lost any votes last night and i'm sure trump partisans loved what he had to same but i think he's in a position where he needs to add quite a bit. >> woodruff: even some democratic comment traitors are saying she didn't have the best answer on some of the issues that resonate most with voters, like jobs that are leaving this country to go elsewhere. because of trade, like the tpp, the trans-pacific partnership,ic nafta. what else could she have said to include her answer on that? >> well, what she spoke was the truth. she said there are some trade deals that she supports and here's the criteria. so there's no doubt that trump hasru used trade to gain some support. i think he's probably gotten all he's going to get from that

issue, but i'm sure we'll talkk about this in st. louis with him. and so i think she's got to say, a, here's my view on trade, and, b, what i think she did do a good job of is saying trump's ideas on tax, on the economy, would actually cost us millions of jobs and blow up the deficit. he's not offering anything new. but it's worse than what romney was offering. it's worse than what mccainmc was offering. we had great success on both of those things. >> woodruff: you also hear,he david plouffe, democrats saying that they wish she had a crisp answer on why she should be elected president, that she often tends to say when asked about one issue or another, shee gives a number of items in a list and she'll say, this is my plan, this is my platform. do you think that's a challenge for her?g >> well, i spoke about this before the debate. i think what i'd like to see more of for sure is no one doubts her head. people might not agree withe everything she's got, but she'ss got a great grasp of politics. really from the heart and from the gut, talk about why she's

running. why this race? why her at this moment, and on whose behalf? the town hall debate is a great place obviously. you're having a conversations with fellow citizens to do thath i think the moments where she talks about those types of things, she doesn't want anybody to have to struggle like her mom. i think she talked very passionately about her father and the lessons she learned. that was effective. the more we see of that the better off these next five and a half weeks will be. >> woodruff: you started out david plouffe by saying you thought this first debate would be the most watched. are you saying we really aren't going to have any more sort of pivotal moments in this campaign for next six weeks. >> well, here's what i say: there are two more pivotal moments we know about, the two presidential... the v.p. debate is important, but it's rarely been something that moves the t ball. it's important, and i'm sure tim kaine will do a good job and pence will do a good job for trump. the campaign itself, you know, where the candidates are going, are they turning out the right kind of vote? are they persuading vote centerr

what kind of ground operation and the unforeseen event. but unlike '12 when we lost the first debate, we were in the lead. that's the difference. because i think clinton is in the lead.rele secondly, i don't think obama... it was just a wad performance. he did not perform well. romney performed well. but there was no one moment. it was just a bad, flat performance. so i think trump lost a big opportunity last night. the tv ratings are over 80 million. my suspicion is if you add everybody who watched it together with people ind home,t bars, on their phone, it's goin to be close to 100 million. so maybe the next one. the next two will be important,n but trump has got to really, really dominate the next twoo debates in a way that swing voters say, okay. trump now is the one i'm leaning toward. and i don't think he's got that in him, by the way. i don't see a president when i look at donald trump. but we'll see. >> christa:>> woodruff: david p, thank you.

>> woodruff: stay with us, w coming up on the newshour, a personal view on the struggles of white working classtr americans. but first, at a time when public schools across the country are cutting the arts out of education, a jazz musician inaz boston is finding a way to pushp through the noise. lisa stark of our partners at "education week" has this report, for our weekly education series, "making the grade." ♪ ♪ >> reporter: myran parker-brass began singing at age five: she's never stopped. ♪ ♪ a classically trained mezzo- soprano, she's now raising her voice to push arts education in boston's public schools.

>> finding the opportunity to teach as well as to perform has always been what keeps me sane, i think.rf >> reporter: parker-brass is the district's arts director, a job she jumped into five years ago after two decades with the boston symphony. a one-time public school teacher herself, she had an ambitious plan. >> our goal is that we will have 100% of our students in k through 8 receiving at least weekly arts education. >> reporter: they're almost there: in 2009, less than 70% o9 elementary and middle school students had a regular arts class. today, over 90% do. >> she was right behind us, wasn't she? >> reporter: taking theatre, dance, music and visual art at least once a week. and the percentage of high school students taking art classes has nearly tripled.

>> it's been a huge, huge change. >> reporter: allyssa jones, who oversees the district's performing arts program, was a music teacher when parker-brass came on board and began ramping up the arts programs. o >> what a parade man, what a parade. what a battle to win. changing minds is pretty awesome. >> reporter: changing minds- about the value of arts education. >> learning and working in the arts provide students the opportunity to be creative, to be innovative, to be reflective, to learn how to work as a team. >> reporter: and it's not just students who are harmonizing. parker-brass built a team to b support her arts teachers, and she fine-tuned outside partnerships already in place. >> reporter: these high school students, for example, explore

art with the help of the mass college of art and design. but perhaps the lynchpin of the turnaround: increased funding. under parker-brass boston dramatically increased its artss spending by more than 50%, from $17 million to $26 million, and added millions in more in outside grant funding, allowing the district to double the number of full-time art teachers. the result: an additional 14,000 students in boston now receive arts education. but parker-brass isn't ready to take a bow. she's too busy with her next push: trying to convince massachusetts state universities to change their admission requirements to include a high school arts class, just as >> i think our job is to make sure our students see art, understand art, appreciate it, and if they are passionatet,

enough, create it. >> reporter: i'm lisa stark of education week, reporting for the pbs newshour. >> woodruff: now in this topsy- turvy election year, we have ave timely portrait of americans who are often ignored and misunderstood, depicted as only an insider could. it's the first in an occasional series on books this election season we're calling "political ink." j.d. vance, welcome to the "newshour." this book is many things,th "hillbilly elegy," but i think amongst all else it's a personan story. it's about growing up in appalachia in difficult circumstances, raised by your grandparents, father who wasn't there, mother had an addiction. i think for most people hard the write about these things, but not hard for you?

>> no, it was definitely hard. i definitely struggled allotted with the intrusion and just being so open about my personalr history and my family history, but i decided that ultimately it was worth it because i felt a lot of these issues needed to be talked about openly, and i couldn't think of a better way to do it than be honest about my own failings and my family's failings, and sometimes honesty is the best policy and that starts with me. >> woodruff: you do write very candidly about this rough-around-the-edges lifestyle, both in kentucky and then whenuc your family moved to southern ohio. it's rough around the edge, but it's a life you love and a life you honor.o >> yeah, absolutely. there are good and bad parts of the community and of my own family, of course, and i try to be very frank about the problems but also very compassionate and also explain why so many of these people were so good to me and so important in my life and frankly why i would not have had the opportunities i have rightht

now if it weren't for them. >> woodruff: at the same time,ti as you grow older, as you finish school, you join the marines and your life changed, you began toa be more critical of some of these people, of their lifestyle, not of the individual, but of what you were seeing. what did you find? what did you grow to see that you didn't see when you were younger? >> well, i started to see that a lot of the reason we don't have the level of... why there aren't more kids like me at yale law school, that's question i triedr the answer when i was writing the book, and it occurred to me that there are things in the community from the addictionit crisis to family breakdown and the economic problems in the community, all of these conspired against a lot of our youth. >> woodruff: you make it clearr blame can be spread all around. you pointed out the social programs that haven't helped. you talk about the individuals themselves. >> sure. >> woodruff: who are part of the issue. >> yeah, absolutely. the thing i try to really hammer home in the book is that this is

a sort of all of the above type of problem. it's not just that governmentnt has failed us. it's not just that we've failed ourselves. it's government, it's individual, it's sort of everything in between, families, and communities and neighborhoods, churches and so forth. and it's the sort of problem that i think can't be solved super easily. >> woodruff: as you say, you make it clear that the rest of us, the rest of the country is partly to blame for what's happened to white working class americans. you don't see a solution, butt what should we be doing differently? >> i think that we should be understanding communities andit taking these communities as they actually are. we might ask, for example, how do we make it easier for low-income parents to interacto better with their children, to interact better with their partners? that's just one idea. but hopefully they'll take away from it a sense that this social crisis in white working class communities is pretty complicated, but it's not totally immune to public policy solutions. there are things that we might do as a broader society.

>> woodruff: you spell out so much of the gap between educated america, well-to-do, well-off, middle income america and the life that you grew up in. why is that gap getting bigger? >> i think part of it is we don't spend a whole lot of time around each other. it was really striking to me that this was culture alienation. i never spent that much time around these people and these people had never spent that much time in a neighborhood i grew up around. so when you're so disconnected geographically, even if you livl in the same maybe region of the country, it's hard to reallyal understand how the other thinks and what the attitudes of other groups of people are. >> woodruff: i think it's pretty clear in this year a lot of people have looked to you to explain frankly much of the donald trump vote. >>th sure. >> woodruff: white, working-class americans, is that really who you're talking about here and how do you explain the attraction of donald trump? >> i think it's a very complicated phenomenon.

it's difficult to understand why some of these folkso have been attracted to donald trump.al but a big part of it is the way he conducts himself he's relatable in a way you might talk about politics around the dinner table. that's something that people see in donald trump that maybe they see a little bit in themselves. there's also a sense that people just feel ignored by the political class. they feel like their communitiei have been struggling in a lot of different ways for 20 or 30 years, no one has cared and trump is the first person to see these communities, even if yous, think, as i do, that he doesn'th have all the solutions.so >> woodruff: you say many americans that you know, not only do they not trust politician, but they don't trust the media. you quote somebody as saying the free press is full of... i'm not going to say a word. you describe a gap, people with information, with education and those with less information and less education. how do you see that? >> well, i think a sense of

cultural alienation breeds a sense of mistrust of everything that is seen of the elite. you don't trust people with w control over the news.ov but i think the conservative media and i say this as a right-wing person, we have to do a better job of engaging with voters. i write that some of the ways we talk about the news media, the way the conservative media talks about the president, it foments this sense of alienation and what the folks in the white working class need is something that encourages them to reintegrate with theirei communities, not to further self-selling gait. so like everything, it's a sort of situation where all of us have a role to play, and i certainly put my side in part ot that. >> woodruff: we've been taking attention to something hillary clinton said in describing donald trump's followers. she calls them "a basket of deplorables." is there something to what she said, or is she completely off base? >> well, i think it's probably both. there are definitely... there is definitely an element of donald trump support's that has its

basis in racism and xenophobia, but a lot of these folks are hard-working people who areo struggling in really important ways, and i think folks can be led by political lead centers one direction or another. they can be pushed or pulled. when hillary clinton says something like, that it strikesh me that she's pushing people away from what she wants them to get out of her message, and if you think as i do that donald trump doesn't necessarily have a good message either, that'sha maybe not the best approach to politics. it's not how you win these folks over.r. and if you're worried about them being racist now, when you push them away and push them to somebody like trump, you're only going to make the problem worse. >> woodruff: what is the way t to win them over?? >> i think the first step is trump has sort of shed some light on, just to recognize the nature of the problem. recognize these communities are really struggling. and my hope is that after 2016, after we end this election season, that people are thinkinn more constructively about how to help, not just diagnosing theos problem and saying, let's build a mexican border wall to fix

everything. maybe diagnose the problem and think more constructively about the best way forward. >> woodruff: j.d. vance, the book is "hillbilly elegy: a memoir of a family and culture in crisis." it was a great read. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: time for a newshour essay. last month, a column by tracy grant, "the washington post" p newspaper's deputy managing editor, really moved members ofg our staff. we asked her to expand on her idea with us in the form of an essay. >> ten years ago my world as i knew it ended. my husband of 19 years, the father of my two sons, was diagnosed with terminal cancer. over the course of seven months bill went from beating me silly on the tennis court to needing my help to go to the bathroom. it was the best seven months of

my life. i realize how that sounds, but i was 42 when my husband was diagnosed. i had a great job, two terrific kids, but i had yet to discoverc the reason i was put on this earth. during those seven months, i came to understand that whatever else i did in my life, nothing would matter more than this. in the early days after bill's diagnosis, being a caregiver caused me to be the best reporter i knew how to be. there was a heavy sense that i could out macgyver the disease. i would make doctors and insurance companies answer my questions. i had been a good reporter before. here's what changed: there were no bad days. the petty day-in-day-out grievances of a irksome coworkeo or a flat tired paled inti comparison to the joy of spontaneous laughter or the night sky. i found i could train myself to

see more beauty than bother, to set my internal barometer to be more compassionate than callus. during bill's last weekend, we sat side by side on his hospital bed, sharing a sandwich and watching television. it was our last moment as us, and i thought to myself, i could live with this man even as compromised as he is, for the next 40 years, not because i was a saint, but because i had learned to focus on the essence of bill and our relationship. what seven months earlier would have seemed to be unspeakably less was just right. i now realize that i may never be as good a person as i was when i cared for bill, but thee best version of myself did not die with him. i have fought hard not to lose the perspective his illness gave me. one of the worst things that can

happen to anyone has already happened to me. so what else is there to be afraid of? it has been liberating in a way that has made me a better mother, a better friend, a better colleague. i'm quicker to say i'm sorry, and i don't need to be right alg the time. i am a better person for having been bill's caregiver. it was his last best gift to me. >> woodruff: now to our newshour shares. last night, the miami marlins baseball team paid tribute to 24-year-old jose fernandez, the talented young pitcher who died in a boating accident this w weekend. william brangham has more. >> our community, the baseball world and the miami marlinsi suffered a tragic loss yesterday

with the passing of jose fernandez. our hearts are heavy with sorry as we gather together tonight to remember a man and teammate who meant so much to all of us. jose fernandez had been scheduled to started the game against the new york mets, but instead the stadium took a moment of silence and thenth aan poignant rendition of "take me out to the ballgame". ♪ ♪ ( "take me out to the ballgame playing ) >> brangham: fernandez, who had defected from cuba when he was just 15, was wildly popular inro miami and had been named the national league rookie of the year in 2003.d as the pre-game ceremony closed, the marlins, each wearing a jersey with fernandez's name, gathered to inscribe the two- time all star's name on the pitcher's mound bearing his number.s >> let's go, let's go. >> brangham: and emotions ranmo high even as the game got underway. teammate and leadoff hitter dee gordon wore fernandez's helmet

as he hit the ball out of the park. it was his first home run of the season. the marlins went on to win 7 to 3, and even in victory, the team honored their fallen comrade, each kneeling to place theirto hats and the game ball on the mound their ace had once called home. g the miami marlins plan to retire fernandez's no. 16 jersey; the first ever number retired in the club's history.z' >> woodruff: a perfect way to remember jose fernandez. and that's the newshour for tonight.dr for all of us at the pbs newshour, thank you and good night.of >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: >> lincoln financial-- committed to helping you take charge of your financial future.

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>> this is "bbc world news america." funding of this presentation is made possible by the freeman foundation, newman's own foundation, giving all profits from newman's own to charity and pursuing the common good, kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs, and aruba tourism authority. >> planning a vacation escape that is relaxing, inviting, and exciting is a lot easier than you think. you can find it here, in aruba. families, couples, and friends can all find their escape on the island with warm, sunny days, cooling trade winds, and the