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tv   PBS News Hour  PBS  October 7, 2016 6:00pm-7:01pm PDT

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captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening. i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight: the death toll in haiti from hurricane matthew soars and the storm thrashes florida's east coast, knocking out power for half a million people. plus, the obama administration accuses the russian government of hacking the democratic national committee and other political organizations. then, returning home after isis- - iraqis take back fallujah only to find an abandoned city gutted by two years of war. >> in order to take back fallujah city, the iraqi military had to completely empty the city, and the fighting that happened afterwards destroyed everything that the eye can see. >> woodruff: and, while the
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candidates prepare for the second presidential debate, we take on this week in politics with mark shields and michael gerson. all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: ♪ ♪ moving our economy for 160 years. bnsf, the engine that connects us.
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lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. >> the ford foundation. working with visionaries on the frontlines of social change worldwide. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and friends of the newshour. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for
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public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: it's been a day to hunker down along the atlantic shores of florida. hurricane matthew plowed north with winds of 110 miles an hour, and there were late reports of heavy damage in the state's northeastern corner. in the storm's wake, the tragedy in haiti only deepened, with more than 800 people dead. hari sreenivasan is in new smyrna beach, florida and begins our coverage. >> reporter: three days after the hurricane struck haiti, the water is receding, survivors are finding bodies by the hundreds. ingrid arnesen is a free-lance journalist who's been out for a first-hand look.
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>> reporter: the death toll is expected to rise sharply as teams enter remote areas of the hard-hit southwestern peninsula. for example, one official working in mountainous beaumont, on the outskirts of jeremie says his group found more than 80 bodies that had not yet been recorded by the government. the storm blasted haiti with winds of 145 miles-an-hour and several feet of rain, and left utter devastation in one of the world's poorest countries. >> ( translated ): we have big problems here. there are almost no houses left standing. we don't have food, nor a hospital to get healthcare. >> ( translated ): we have nothing left. the hurricane took shirts from our backs. >> reporter: tens of thousands are now homeless, and their crops have been destroyed. but relief efforts are gearing
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up. the u.s. military expects to deliver food and water to hard- hit areas. and, international aid groups are appealing for donations. margaret traub is with the international medical corps. >> reporter: meanwhile, people along florida's atlantic coast spent this day waiting out matthew. the eye of the storm stayed just off shore, and may have spared the state a catastrophic blow. governor rick scott repeatedly made clear the danger had not passed. >> there's no victory lap here. the victory lap is when storm leaves our state. and i hope it doesn't hit
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georgia, north and south carolina. >> reporter: the city of jacksonville may get the worst of it, as the hurricane passes this evening. from there, it will push north along georgia and the carolinas, keeping hundreds of miles of coastline under threat for 15 inches of rain and a nine-foot storm surge. the governors of south carolina and georgia warned today that time is running out. >> this is the last time you will see me before we are actually in storm mode. so please evacuate. >> there's nothing certain about this other than the danger, and we should pay due heed to the warnings that have been given. >> reporter: in washington, president obama met with the head of the federal emergency management agency, and repeated his own warning. >> the potential for storm surge, flooding, loss of life and severe property damage continues to exist, and people continue to need to continue to follow the instructions of their local officials over the next
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24, 48, 72 hours. >> reporter: thousands along the florida coast did heed those warnings from authorities and took refuge in central florida. for them, today was a long day of watching and waiting. gloria and david floyd live in satellite beach, southeast of orlando. their home and yard took some damage, but they said it could have been much worse. even so, they headed to a hotel on higher land. >> once it got to be a category four and i knew that it could get really ugly, and that is when i knew that i decided it is better to leave. >> reporter: the mcchrystal family waited out the storm at the same hotel. >> i'm a little nervous. i think today will be a long day until we can get back tomorrow and see you know what the results are. but most likely a lot of people in the neighborhoods locally are lucky so far. so i'm gonna feed off the good luck. >> reporter: others may not be so lucky, and there's economic disruption, as well. coastal businesses and tourism are shut down, and airlines have canceled thousands of flights
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through tomorrow. >> reporter: the entire last half hour on the drive out to new smyrna beach here in florida, power has been out, businesses shut down and people are slowly creeping back in, trying to figure out how they will get things back to normal, and that's not even the worst of it. the northeast corner of florida has been hit much worse. >> woodruff: tell us about what you've seen. you started in orlando, you made your way to new smyrna beach. tell us about what you've seen. >> reporter: well, just a little while ago we were at one of the central park areas in new smyrna. huge trees. a woman passing by said these trees take 100 years to grow, 100 years to die, and this is an unbelievable sight to see so many trees down. there is a dry dock where people keep boats, the roof peeled off, boats tossed around as if they were toys. the force of this hurricane, depends on which house you look
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at, which street you look down down, whether there is debris, walls and fences that have been pulled down, whether water is slowly inundating around the low-lying areas. >> reporter: a lot of people don't appreciate what storm surge means, but the water is lethal in a storm like this. >> that'>> reporter: that's rign st. augustine and further north in florida and savannah, georgia, and charleston, the big concern is what a two-foot or eight-foot storm surge could do, because so many of the cities are low-lying and the storm surges push like a wave taking the last bit of water right on to land. >> reporter: hari, from what you can tell, most of the people along the coastal area did evacuate? yeah, i think a lot of people heeded the warning, didn't put first responders at risk. authorities were relatively happy about that. of course, there were people who
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decided to try to ride out the hurricane and we won't know till everybody gets back what the damage was, but most people heeded the warnings from the local and national authorities who said get out of the way and people are now very anxious to see what the state of their property was like and how everything fared through the storm. >> woodruff: hari sreenivasan reporting for us from new smyrna beach. we haven't you to get someplace where you are dry and safe. >> reporter: thanks, judy. >> woodruff: in the day's other news: the united states formally charged that russia organized the hacking of democratic political sites and state election systems. the department of homeland security and the director of national intelligence said it's an effort to interfere with the election process. we get more now from david sanger of "the new york times." david, thanks for being with us. what's the significance of this and the fact that it comes, what, almost four months after we first heard about these hacks? >> that's right, judy, and we
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reported in late july that the government and intelligence agencies already had high confidence that it was russia. what was interesting about this statement, sort of three big things. the first is that the white house decided to formally do this. usually, president obama has been very reluctant to name foreign actors who were believed to be behind big hacks. they named north korea in the sony hack two years ago, but declined to name china in the hack of more than 20 million security files from the office of personnel management and didn't name russia when they hacked into the state department white house and joint chiefs of staff e-mails, mostly unclassified e-mails. but in this case, i think they felt it was getting too close and that they had to issue a warning to the russians not the mess around on november 8t november 8th with voter rolls or other elements. i think a second important part of it, judy, is that by naming
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them, the president has to announce what he's going to do about it. they haven't said that. he could do economic sanctions. he could take overt action. but there is always a worry in cyber that you get into an ease escalation issue where we do something, they do something back and it can get much bigger. i think a third interesting point is they said the russian leadership itself had to be behind some of the d.n.c. hacks, it couldn't have been done at a lower level. >> woodruff: i notice they said they identified most senior officials. so what are the options for the administration to do something in response? >> there were a few, judy. one is simply to say, by issuing a warning, they put them on notice we're watching, we know what you're doing, so don't mess around a month from now. option number two would be to make the use of new presidential directive president obama signed after the sony hacks signed in
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april 2013 that basically would allow them to do economic sanctions like you do with terror suspects or nuclear proliferaters. the third option is to issue a presidential intelligence finding which is, p by nature, secret, and authorize the national security agency and cyber command to take countervailing action against win sites or servers inside russia or to do something else that would show the russian government and particularly president putin that we can play this game, too. but as i said, that's risky because, you know, you never know where that stops, and you're on the same kind of escalation ladder you in any other conflict or nuclear theory. >theory. >> woodruff: this signals if the administration believes if the russians have the capacity to do this, they have the
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capacity to do other damage. >> well, they do, and you don't know what other leaks come from the russians, but just this evening as all this was happening, we saw leaked e-mails posted on wikileaks that were written in communications with john pedeso who helped run mrs. clinton's campaign that, if it turns out to be like the other material given to wikileaks or other groups, could turn out to be that the russians are already spreading more of this around. we don't have the attribution on that yet. >> woodruff: seems we've reached a new level in outside governments involvement in american politics. >> we sure have. david sanger, we thank you. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: meantime, russia moved today to keep its troops in syria indefinitely. the state duma ratified a treaty with syrian president bashar al- assad. it permits russia to use a major air base on syria's coast for as long as it wants. but in washington, secretary of
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state john kerry said russia and syria should be investigated for war crimes, for attacking hospitals and other civilian targets. >> they're beyond the accidental now. way beyond. years beyond the accidental. this is a targeted strategy to terrorize civilians and to kill anybody and everybody who's in the way of their military objectives. >> woodruff: the u.n. security council votes tomorrow on a resolution urging a truce in aleppo, and an end to all air strikes on the city. russia signaled it will veto the proposal. the philippines is putting joint military exercises with the u.s. on hold, in the south china sea. the country's new president-- rodrigo duterte-- said today he wants a current ongoing exercise to be the last during his six- year term. in a speech, he warned washington: "do not treat us like a doormat because you'll be sorry for it.
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i can always go to china." the pace of hiring in the u.s. economy slowed in september. today's labor department report tells the story: employers added a net of 156,000 jobs, despite the fact manufacturers cut their work force for a second month. the unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a point to 5%, as more people started looking for work. and on wall street: the dow jones industrial average lost 28 points to close at 18,240. the nasdaq fell 14 points to close at 5,292. and the s&p 500 slipped seven. all three indexes were down for the week, after three straight weeks of gains. still to come on the newshour: the surprising recipient of this year's nobel peace prize, iraqi families returning to what's left of their liberated city, setting the stage for the second presidential debate, and much more.
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>> woodruff: the recipient of the nobel peace prize was announced this morning, its laureate chosen from a record 376 nominees. and as in years past, the nobel committee had both a surprise, and a message to convey. chief foreign affairs correspondent margaret warner reports. >> ( translated ): i don't receive this in my name, but in the name of all colombians, especially the millions of victims from this conflict we have been suffering for more than 50 years. >> reporter: the new nobel peace prize laureate-- colombian president juan manuel santos-- met the news with a vow to ensure that this hemisphere's longest war is finally, officially ended. >> ( translated ): to this
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cause, i will dedicate my efforts for the remainder of my days. thanks to god, peace is near. together, together as a nation, we will construct it. >> reporter: the nobel announcement came just five days after colombian voters narrowly rejected a peace deal negotiated between santos' government and the farc rebel group. but in oslo, norway, the peace prize committee voiced hope. >> the fact that the majority of the voters said "no" to the peace accord, does not necessarily mean that the peace process is dead. what the "no" side rejected was not the desire for peace, but a specific peace agreement. >> reporter: in a break with nobel tradition honoring leaders settling conflicts, santos' counterpart in the peace talks-- farc leader rodrigo londoño -- was not recognized by the nobel committee. on twitter today, he congratulated santos and said:
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a prominent former captive of the farc-- ingrid betancourt-- said the rebels should share the prize. she was kidnapped in 2002 as she campaigned for the colombian presidency herself, and was held hostage for six years. >> it's hard for me to say it, but i have to be just and, even though they were my captors and i suffered in their hands, i think that it's true that they transformed themselves. this wouldn't have been possible eight years ago when i was abducted. >> reporter: ironically, even as president santos is recognized internationally, he is facing a political headwinds at home. his approval ratings plummeted below 30% in recent months, and
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and it was clear today, the nobel prize may do little to change their minds about santos. many colombians who lived through a war that claimed over 200,000 lives bridled at the peace agreement, as overly generous to the farc. >> ( translated ): i think it is a farce that that man has won the prize, i think it is a farce. >> reporter: the peace prize appeared to energize those who have backed the colombian president. >> ( translated ): this international support is going to apply pressure on all involved parties in the negotiation. we think this helps. they all have to understand that the world, too, wants peace in colombia. >> reporter: when santos himself sat down with the newshour in february, he acknowledged the difficulties ahead-- especially, reintegrating thousands of former fighters into society. >> kids that only know how to shoot. they were born in the guerrilla camps. and these have to be retrained
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and reeducated. and there's a process. it's cumbersome. it's difficult, but it's necessary. >> reporter: but then, the prospects of an accord were still bright, and the >> a peace agreement is never perfect. always, you have people from one side or the other criticizing it. >> reporter: now, both sides have to re-negotiate, even as a ceasefire with the farc formally expires at the end of this month. for the pbs newshour, i'm margaret warner. >> woodruff: now, to the final report in our three-part series this week: "the fight for iraq." the coming battle to reclaim mosul from isis will be the capstone in the campaign to drive the extremists from iraq. but the hard work after the guns go silent-- of repairing both the city, and relations with the
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people there-- is as important. tonight, again with the support of the pulitzer center on crisis reporting, special correspondent jane ferguson and producer jon gerberg report from one city reclaimed from isis where the fighting was only half the battle. >> reporter: now an empty concrete ghost town, fallujah was once a populous city, just an hour's drive west from baghdad. isis quickly took this city two years ago when they swept into iraq from syria and seized land across the country. they ruled the city and its people until the iraqi army pushed them out in june. in order to take back fallujah city, the iraqi military had to completely empty the city, and the fighting that happened afterwards destroyed everything that the eye can see. now the atmosphere in this still largely empty city is incredibly eerie. khalil abbass is looking forward to rebuilding. he is getting his family ready
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to go back to their village on the outskirts of fallujah. all their belongings have been once-again packed, including even chickens for food. he is optimistic. >> ( translated ): i'm happy i'm going back to my home with my family to live a stable, normal life. if god wills it, we will get our old lives back. >> reporter: not everyone can do that. only a small handful of families have been able to return to fallujah city so far. thousands of others are crammed into camps like this one, not yet allowed to return. many have not been cleared by the security forces. these people are trying to get home. they ran from the intense fighting when the iraqi army recaptured fallujah city from isis. and now they want to return. at a sorting center outside the city, they hope to be given government permission to go home. but first they will have to persuade the men inside here
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they are not isis members in disguise. >> ( translated ): all of the government security branches are here: national security, intelligence, anti-terrorism, military intelligence and police intelligence. >> reporter: each of those groups has a list of suspected isis members, and everyone who applies to return to fallujah has to be checked they are not wanted. when names are read out, the men here answer black, or white. anyone on the black list, is arrested. >> ( translated ): this is a family that wants to return to fallujah. this family is under the name of someone, right? his name is ahmad. white? we screened the name of the head of the family. the rest are women and children. >> reporter: the word in arabic for white, abyad, means they are free to go. only then are they given the permit to return home. they are also given a free sim card with some credit and then they head up the road to
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fallujah. for those who do return, this is what greets them. the streets are now silent. by the time the gunfire finally finished in fallujah city, most of those living here had fled. every highway, avenue and neighborhood is now smashed and scarred by war. there are few signs of life. according to the local government, only about 5% of the pre-isis population has so far returned to the city. many houses are still booby- trapped, says the government. it will take a huge clean-up effort to make every street safe again. some families are missing relatives, picked up by the army as they fled the city. security forces detained fallujans as they evacuated, checking for isis fighters. those they let go were sent to camps like this. hamad khalaf was detained with his four grown sons, but only he and two of them were released.
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that was four months ago and he has heard nothing of his other two sons. >> ( translated ): they kept them. someone came and said, "i saw this one with isis." my son is normal, he is not with isis. >> reporter: in many cases, he says, this came down to personal grudges. the process was often arbitrary, as neighbor turned on neighbor. >> ( translated ): it happened to thousands of people, not just my sons. they are innocent, i know they are innocent. they are being held without explanation. if a person hates another he will tell the police that this person is with isis. >> reporter: hamad's wife, fatima, is distraught at not knowing where they are. >> ( translated ): i feel that they might not release them to me. or they might keep them for another month or two. i might not see them, i might die and never see them again. >> reporter: americans fought two battles for fallujah in
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2004, and were never able to free the city from the grip of the sunni extremists: al qaeda in iraq. sunnis here rejected the toppling of saddam hussein and the rise of a shia government in baghdad, and many welcomed al qaeda in iraq as their defenders. the legacy of that bloodshed means some people in this camp still hold bitter memories of american involvement in their country. >> ( translated ): i lost 31 family members to the americans. of them, my sister's son was four months old. my sister's son, his sister and their father, they were all killed. what more can i say? >> reporter: after the u.s. military withdrawal from iraq, policies of the shia-led baghdad government became more sectarian. sunni people in areas like fallujah were left feeling disenfranchised. many initially welcomed isis-- a new, more ambitious version of al qaeda in iraq.
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sohaib alrawi, governor of fallujah's anbar province, and a sunni himself, saw that sectarian strife firsthand. >> ( translated ): the sunni community faced injustice. many leaders were killed or driven from the country. so the community feels oppressed. i do not excuse the sunni extremists. but this is what inflamed the political and security situation in the sunni provinces. >> reporter: today, the iraqi government's attempts to restore fallujah include mass security and intelligence screening of all of its residents. but that won't give fallujans back the lives they once had, which now only live in memory. >> ( translated ): what else can we say about fallujah? we used to have livestock and tasty food, and now we eat the food of livestock. fallujah is gone. it's lost. fallujah is lost. >> reporter: fallujah has been destroyed by war before, and
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rebuilt. the repeated explosions of violence here are unlikely to end until its people feel like a real part of today's iraq. for the pbs newshour, i'm jane ferguson, in fallujah, iraq. >> woodruff: stay with us. coming up on the newshour: how georgia's changing demographics are also changing elections, plus, mark shields and michael gerson analyze the week's news. but first, the twists and turns keep coming in the race for the white house-- just two days before donald trump and hillary clinton meet in their second presidential debate. john yang reports.
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>> reporter: late today, a new storm around trump. and when they let you do it, you can do anything. grab them by the (bleep). you can do anything. >> it comes as hillary clinton has been blasting trump for his treatment of women and trump has been threatening to make an issue out of bill clinton's infidelities in. a statement trump apologized and said the tape was locker room banter, a private conversation. bill clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course. not even close. campaigning in las vegas, democratic running mate tim kaine reacted to the tape. >> it makes me sick to my stomach. i don't like to even say the words that he's used in the past when he calls women these things. i should be surprised and shocked but i'm sad to say i'm not. >> reporter: earlier trump fired on a significant issue immigration as he met with a
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border patrol unit who endorsed him. the agents are being told to in effect look the other way as election day approaches. >> they're letting people pour into the country so they can go and vote. they want to hurry up and fast track 'em so they can go ahead and be able to vote for these elections. and these are the professionals. these are the people that are on the border. you hear a thing like that-- it's a-- it's a disgrace. >> reporter: running mate mike pence vowed he and trump will end illegal immigration once and for all. meanwhile, trump made headlines of another sort-- about a notorious 1989 rape in central park. five black teen-agers were initially convicted, then exonerated and paid $41 million, when another man confessed in 2002. but trump told cnn:
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clinton was off the tray today preparing for sunday's debate. the campaigns are also watching the impact of hurricane matthew. florida governor rick scott, a republican who is backing trump, rejected a clinton campaign request to extend voter registration beyond next tuesday's deadline. in addition, there could be troubles with the millions of mail-in ballots that went out this week, just as hundreds of thousands of voters in that tossup state were told to evacuate. meanwhile, president obama took advantage of a fundraising trip to chicago to cast his vote. despite prodding from report, he wouldn't violate the sanctity of his secret ballot, but the expression on his face left little doubt who he voted for. for the pbs "newshour", i'm john yang. >> woodruff: well, you've heard a lot in this election year about changing demographics in some states, rising numbers of
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minority voters, who are scrambling the calculus for the candidates and the parties. one of the places with the most dramatic change underway is georgia, it hasn't voted democratic in 24 years, but is giving hillary clinton reason to hope this year. i flew there this past weekend. at the sweet auburn festival on saturday, neighbors and tourists showed up to eat, drink, and enjoy local musicians. in this atlanta neighborhood, known as the historic heart of the civil rights movement here, some are clear who they're voting for. >> i'm looking forward to having a female president, and also i like the way her campaign is run and i like the way she speaks. i think she'll do well to getting this world back into the order. >> woodruff: voters like this are exactly what hillary clinton must have to turn georgia blue for the first time since 1992, says emory university's andra gillespie. >> you need african americans to turn out in record numbers, just as they did in 2008 and 2012. i suspect that hillary clinton
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is going to do extremely well in the state amongst blacks who do turn out to vote. we should expect that they're going to make up about 30% of the electorate here in georgia. >> woodruff: in fact, due to dramatic demographic changes, growing numbers of blacks and other minorities, clinton is relying on voters like 33-year- old charisse price. >> i'm voting for her because i feel that she's the candidate that most aligns with my values and the issues that are important to me. and i'm excited about what she offers as the most qualified candidate in history. >> woodruff: democrats also hope to capitalize on negative feelings toward donald trump among the latino community that has more than doubled since 2000. latinos make up just under 10% of the population in georgia, but they are now less than 3% of registered voters. omar rodriguez esparza is a naturalized u.s. citizen from mexico, who says he cannot support trump. >> it really did bother me when
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he started to offend my community, calling us different things that were obscene and derogatory. for me, to stand behind a person that speaks that way about my community, i just can't do it. that's like turning my back against my own community. >> woodruff: but georgia republicans say they are not ready to simply cede minority voters to the democrats. >> i think what they're underestimating is the number of african americans who are now saying, "i am independent in my thinking about politics." >> reporter: leo smith is the georgia g.o.p.'s minority engagement director. >> the georgia republican party decided in 2013 that we would embrace a strategy that target-- micro-target demographics that we have not been successful with. and so we developed a strategy to make sure that we're connected with blacks, that we connected with latin-americans, latino americans, that we're connected with asian americans. >> woodruff: in 2008, 98% of
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blacks who voted, went obama. but this year democrats say the key is not the percentage, but the number of african-americans who vote. democrat stacey abrams is the minority leader in the georgia state house of representatives. >> most of the pre-work that happens in elections is persuading people to believe that your candidate has the right belief set. that they are the right person. where we are now is convincing people that they need to turn out and do something about it. we have six weeks. it's a heavy lift, but it's a very do-able lift. >> woodruff: doable, but with a special challenge among younger voters. >> she has a problem particularly amongst young african americans who appear to be soft on her. it doesn't mean that they're going to defect and vote for donald trump. i think the questions is do they stay home or do they vote for somebody else? >> for me, voting for her would be like settling. i don't want to settle. i'd rather stay single, right?
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>> woodruff: shaidah ehehosi-- a sophomore at georgia state university-- says she feels pressure to back clinton, but as of now, doesn't think she can do that. >> she's so sneaky, and she's just not honest. donald trump is openly racist, you know? openly ridiculous, basically, but hillary is so covert with her actions that that scares me as well. it's just so... it's tough. >> woodruff: in this state with a population in transition, clinton's challenge is not only to turn out the democratic base- especially african americans, but also to turn out more white voters than democrats have won in the past five presidential elections. thanks to the controversial candidacy of donald trump, the key could be white women like jessica mayer, who voted for mitt romney last time, but says trump is out of the question. she's considering clinton. >> i don't know if i want to
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vote for her or not. i like her. i don't dislike her, but i like gary johnson a lot, too. i don't want to vote for it just because she's a woman. even though i feel like i'm leaning that way because it'd be nice to have a woman in the white house. >> woodruff: the support of voters like jessica is essential to a long-shot democratic victory here, says strategist gordon giffin. >> to win a state like georgia, you've got to appeal to a broad cross-section of genders, you can't just go after one gender, broad cross-section of all parts of our citizenry. to win here, hillary clinton would have to get a substantial part of the white vote, not just the minority vote. >> woodruff: again, andra gillespie. >> in the context of the first debate performance, and donald trump's lashing out at alicia machado for her weight and other kinds of things, these are the kinds of messages that could play well to suburban white voters who are on the fence about trump, and maybe she can convince them to come to her side. >> woodruff: young georgia
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republicans like jake evans acknowledge trump's weakness among women who would normally lean right. >> millennials overall are a generation of equality on the gender side, on the race side, and he undoubtedly leads some people to believe that he doesn't fully further gender- equality motives. >> woodruff: even so, evans himself backs trump albeit without enthusiasm. >> i'll vote for donald trump because i think he aligns more with my personal ideologies: less government, lower taxes, less regulation. i believe, personally, that's what's best for the country, but i will do it reluctantly. i think it's an election of the lesser of two evils, to be honest with you, for a lot of millennials. >> woodruff: clinton supporters say she can win that argument, if her campaign targets all the voters who are turned off by trump.
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>> if 30% of the white vote in georgia votes for hillary clinton, she'll carry the state of georgia. >> woodruff: we also found that, even among clinton backers here, there is concern that the deep divisions in the country will undermine her, if she's elected. >> i think that she is going to have as difficult a time as president obama had as far as congressional support. i hope that they do not meet secretly the night that she is elected and decide that they are going to vote no for everything that she may present to congress. >> woodruff: and that's a snapshot of georgia, where new voter registration ends next tuesday, october 11th. it's also the moment we turn to the analysis of shields and gerson. that's syndicated columnist mark shields and "washington post" columnist michael gerson. david brooks is away. gentlemen, welcome. so there was a lot of news that
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we learned about late this afternoon that has to do with this campaign. but, mark, i want to start with a question about georgia. you heard to some of the voters, the fact that a state where mitt romney won by 8 points four years ago, where it's close, but uphill for hillary clinton, but close because of what we talked about. >> the interviews defined the enthusiasm gap. it isn't just on one side. it's both sides. it's minimal excitement. and for hillary clinton, i think what came through in your piece is it's not a question of the percentage of the african-american vote, trying to get 30% of the white vote, it's numbers. you can get high percentages but if you don't get numbers in the turnout, georgia could move, if not this time, eventually into the category of virginia, north carolina, state states the changed, colorado, nevada. >> woodruff: michael.
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i think republican furor is the exact example. when barack obama won the first term, it's the first time virginia went democratic since 1964, and now it's not even close. hillary clinton is ahead by about 8 points in virginia. the state has gotten more diverse, more hispanics and asians, more college-educated people, and i think it's gone a different direction for reasons republicans fear in that region. >> woodruff: a blizzard of news late this afternoon. mark, starting with the obama administration, naming russia, saying high officials in russia were behind the hacks against the democratic party and other figures. then you had wikileaks come out soon after with information about john podesta, news about nuclear energy, and "the washington post" story, which i
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think i'll start with that, essentially releasing the audiotape -- and you heard it in john yang's report -- showing -- videotape -- showing donald trump's lewd remarks about women about ten years ago. >> judy, let's get one thing straight -- this is not locker room talk. this is not pre-teen, adolescent finding dirty words. this is a 60-year-old man being obscene -- obscene -- in discussing women, boasting and bragging in the worst and most offensive way and i think the political implications are profound. senator kelly ayote, republican in new hampshire, said she will vote for donald trump but not endorse him. in a debate this this past week she was asked do you consider donald trump to be an appropriate role model for the children of new hampshire, absolutely was the end of her
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answer, was immediately pounced on, she apologized. every republican in a competitive race in the country will be asked in the next week in a debate whether bioponents tore the press, do you consider donald trump to be an appropriate role model for the children of our state? as far as the women's vote you just reported on in georgia, it makes it so -- not simply difficult, it makes it almost impossible for somebody with self-respect who is a mother or sister or daughter, you know, somebody like this in abraham lincoln's chair. >> woodruff: michael, how do you assess this? >> i think the problem is not just bad language, but it's predatory language, abusive and demeaning language. that indicates something about someone's character that is frankly disturbing in a case like this, and i think
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evangelicals have a particular problem right now. i mean, they are the people who argued, many of leaders who argued that character counts during the bill clinton years, and now character apparently doesn't count at all. so i think there's a deep tension. >> woodruff: and trump's response was bill clinton used far worse language than you heard here, on the golf course. >> yeah, the disparaging remarks he made earlier that it was just intertairching or amusing. with some pride, george w. bush won the white house by promising to restore dignity to the oval office, and they presented themselves as a family, the party of family values. it is possible to say that today about the republicans standard
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bearer in any way, and i will have to say, forgetting moral values, we're talking about the supreme court. character doesn't count, the only thing that counts is the supreme court. >> sunday night, certainly women in the audience will be asking questions during the debate. there will be a question, why should i support this disgusting boor? >> woodruff: we're told today we learned this is a group of uncommitted voters in the st. louis area put together by the gallup organization. michael, turning to one of the other stories of this afternoon, the administration announcing after four months of saying they weren't ready to say whether it was russia officially behind these hacks. they're now saying it was russian -- top russian officials who were hacking the democratic national committee. >> yeah, this has all the appearance of a foreign power trying to undermine structures
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of legitimacy of an learn election. that is a serious matter. if i were the media, i would be wary of using anything that came out of these document dumps which service the purpose of a foreign power, but at the very least americans have to discount this. this is an attempt to hijack and change american democracy by a foreign power. it can't be accepted. >> i agree. the presidential option of economic sanctions are on the table. you know, what the retaliation will take. but i would say it's the end of the reset with china that's certain and the conclusion, the statement -- >> woodruff: with russia. ith russia, excuse me. only russia's senior-most officials could authorized said the director of intelligence and homeland security department. this is pretty profoundly serious. >> woodruff: and seemingly hand in hand or at least the timing may be more than coincidental, wikileaks released the john podeso e-mails.
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he's hillary clinton's campaign chairman. he's run his own lobbying firm in washington for a number of years, and we haven't seen much of that yet but it's supposed to be having to do with nuclear energy. >> "new york times" had a big front-page story last year about the sale of that uranium company that was authorized by the united states government to russia, with russia controlling it, and the allegations are that there were contributions made to the clinton foundation which were kept if the from the obama white house. whether or not that's confirmed, that's pretty serious. that's going to cause real tensions, if that's the case, within the democratic family. >> woodruff: and i'm sure reporters will continue to pore over this. >> exactly. >> woodruff: michael, we have the second presidential debate sunday night in st. louis. as different format.
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does this format benefit one or the other of these two people? >> i think so. this is a format that does not reward aggression. it rewards empathy, explanation. those are not trump strong points. he has not done a full run-through of this, according to his own campaign, i mean private. he had an event in new hampshire last night which was supposed to be like this sort of event and he did terribly. it is quite possible that he will have a second miserable performance, and i don't think that will make republicans denounce him broadly. it will mean just that the balloon is out of republican morale completely. and start looking at 2020, knowing they don't have a competent candidate. >> woodruff: how do you see this debate? >> half the questions will be from the audience and half from the moderator, and from people. the problem with these debates
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like this is that you can't really prepare for them because the questions are so individual and personal, are even idiosyncratic. secretary clinton has richer and keifer experience in doing these, obviously, than donald trump. but people at home, i can't attack you, michael, if we're doing a town meeting. you have to answer the question asked. what people at home are gauging, judy, is how does this candidate respond to the question. do they show respect to the questionnaire? do they try to understand the question and respond to the question? is there empathy? is there a human connection between the two? it's where barack obama beat mitt romney in 2012. he lost the voters who was a stronger leader, who had a vision for the future, but on who cares about people like me, he trounced mitt romney, and i
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think that will be a gauge of this sunday night. >> woodruff: it sort of faded into the back of the news today, michael, but it was just three or four night ago that we had the vice presidential debate between mike pence and tim kaine, a lot of conversation about it and the day after, did that have a lingering effect? >> the republicans looking for any good news after a pretty disastrous week, but when you analyze id, mike pence could only defend donald trump by projecting an image of himself, that trump held his views on russia or syria and that's really not true. so it was a weird way to defend the person at the top of your ticket and i think that was noticed. >> that's a good point. i thought mike pence, upon reflection to me, came across a little bit like your favorite aunt who refuses in spate of
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first-person evidence that grandpa has been drunk and disorderly in public, says grandpa would never do that, even though grandpa is being taken off in handcuffs. donald would never say that about our neighbors, about our good religious muslim friends. and i think the democrats, the clinton campaign, did a terrible disservice to tim kaine. tim kaine was well liked and they turned him into an attack dog. it wasn't good and, for short-term benefit, i think they tarnished the brand, which is an awfully good brand. >> woodruff: last thing i want to ask you two about quickly is the libertarian candidate for president gary johnson, if this is a close election, michael and
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mark, he could -- whatever he gets could make a difference. we've seen him this week talking more about foreign policy and saying it's okay not to have an opinion about it, just in ten seconds, how much of a factor is he? >> marginally hurlts hillary clinton but probably not a big factor. >> less today than he did last week and perhaps less tomorrow than he did today. >> woodruff: mark shields, michael gerson, we thank you both. and be sure to join us right here this sunday for live coverage of the presidential debate starting at 9:00 p.m. eastern. >> woodruff: gwen ifill is preparing for "washington week." which airs later this evening. gwen? >> ifill: we are in the middle of debate season, as the candidates take each other on--
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up close, as well as from a distance. it's also the season of real life consequences as voters begin to decide how to pick not only a president, but also senators and members of the house. we assess the choices, and preview sunday's second presidential face off, tonight on "washington week." judy? >> woodruff: and we'll be watching. on pbs newshour saturday: hari continues our on-the-ground coverage of hurricane matthew and its aftermath. >> sreenivasan: tonight we brought you information from new smyrna beach, florida, but as you know, hurricane matthew is working its way up the eastern seaboard from florida across georgia and south carolina. we will continue to provide the latest information on this hurricane and the damage it's causing all weekend long. you can watch on the broadcast on "newshour" weekend. you can follow on our social channels. thanks for watching.
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>> woodruff: and we'll be following all of that. thanks, hari. and we'll be back, right here, on sunday at 9:00 p.m. eastern with special live coverage of the second presidential debate between donald trump and hillary clinton. that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. have a great weekend. thank you and good night. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by: lincoln financial is committed to helping you take charge of your future. >> supporting social entrepreneurs and their solutions to the world's most pressing problems-- skollfoundation.org. >> and the william and flora hewlett foundation, helping people build immeasurably better lives. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs
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station from viewers like you. thank you. captioning sponsored by newshour productions, llc captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org
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♪ this is "nightly busine wita not too hot, not too cold. today's jobs report may not be just right, either. and now it's up to the federal reserve to decide if the hike is fast approaching. hurricane matth hits florida, hard. we'll assess the damage and give you the latest on this mammoth storm. and bright idea. meet the entrepreneurs who are taking the frustration out of pharmacy visits, so you can get the medicine you need quickly. those stories and more tonight on "nightly bu for friday, oct. good evening, everyone. i'm tyler mathisen, sue herera has the evening off. we begin tonight with jobs. and