captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for saturday, october 15: with donald trump under fire, is the republican party fracturing three weeks before election day? in our signature segment, general motors and other car makers race to deliver a long- range electric car that sells as well as tesla's. next on pbs newshour weekend. >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america--

designing customized individual and group retirement products. that's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. from the tisch wnet studios at lincoln center in new york, hari sreenivasan. >> sreenivasan: good evening, and thanks for joining us. with three weeks and three days to go to election day, donald trump is campaigning again in the battleground state where he won his first republican primary, new hampshire. today at his rally, trump called his democratic opponent unworthy of the white house. >> hillary clinton is the most >> sreenivasan: trump continued to deny allegations by numerous women that he harassed them or groped and kissed them without consent. this morning, on twitter, trump called their stories "100% fabricated and made-up charges pushed strongly by the media and the clinton campaign." he also repeated the unsubstantiated claim that "this

election is being rigged." in response, clinton campaign manager said in a written statement today: "participation in the system, and particularly voting, should be encouraged, not dismissed or undermined because a candidate is afraid he's going to lose. this election will have record turnout because voters see through donald trump's shameful attempts to undermine an election weeks before it happens." after a west coast campaign swing, clinton has no public events planned before next wednesday's final debate with trump in las vegas. meanwhile, today, wikileaks published transcripts of at least three of her paid talks in 2013 with the investment firm goldman sachs, hacked from the email account of her campaign chairman, john podesta. a saudi arabia-led and u.s.- supported military coalition is apologizing for bombing a funeral in yemen last week, an attack that killed 140 people and wounded 600 more. in a written statement published today, the coalition's joint incidents assessment team said it "wrongly targeted" the location because of "incorrect information."

the statement went on to say:" the coalition command expresses its regret at this unintentional incident and the ensuing pain for victims' families." the funeral hall had been filled with leaders and supporters of the shiite rebels, who the saudi-led coalition has targeted since last year in support of yemen's internationally recognized government. three men in kansas face arraignment on monday morning for allegedly plotting to bomb an apartment complex that's home to 120 people, including many muslim immigrants from somalia. federal prosecutors say the trio arrested yesterday belong to a militia group that calls itself the crusaders. they allegedly stockpiled weapons and planned to detonate car bombs outside the complex in garden city, 200 miles west of wichita, the day after election day. >> one apartment was used as a mosque. the f.b.i. investigated the money for eight months. if convicted, they could face life in federal prison.

residents of portland, oregon, today braced for more strong winds and rain today, but nothing as bad as the tornado that struck the beach town of manzanita 90 miles west of portland yesterday, toppling trees and damaging two dozen homes. there were no reports of injuries. up the pacific coast, in seattle, the national weather service forecast storms with wind gusts up to 70 miles an hour today. in north carolina, flood waters from rivers swollen by hurricane matthew last weekend are receding. rescue workers today discovered two more fatalities in a submerged vehicle. a total of 26 deaths in north carolina are blamed on the storm. >> sreenivasan: the "washington post" released a 2005 video of donald trump speaking in vulgar terms that disparaged women last week. then came a series of accusations by women accusing trump of sexual improprieties. this is costing trump support in his own party. according to a "u.s.a. today"

survey, about 25% of the republicans serving as governors, u.s. senators and members of the house of representatives now say they do not support trump. and according to a "time magazine" tally, among female republicans in office, around 35% do not support him. to discuss the gap within the g.o.p., i am joined from washington by jonathan swan, a national political reporter wi"" the hill." so how significant is this rift? >> it's about as significant as it can-- as imaginable. i mean, particularly in the last few weeks, when donald trump and his cohort made a strategic decision to no longer migrate towards the center. i mean, there was sort of a period there where he was at least indicating that he was trying to reach out to some of those undecided voters. now there seems to be a strategy to really just double down on the most incendiary rhetoric possible. so you already had a whole lot of republicans who were deeply uncomfortable about supporting trump but wanted to support him, and he's making it very, very easy for them now to say, no, we

don't want to be a part of this," and what it's doing, really, is severing through what was a very thin thread connecting the paul ryan wing of the republican party to the donald trump wing of the republican party >> sreenivasan: but what happens to all the people that support trump that no longer see, perhaps, the g.o.p. as their home? >> well, this is a conversation that's now happening with increasing intensity all around washington. i mean, this week i had conversations with people close to paul ryan. i had conversations with people who were working for donald trump. and both camps are saying now openly that there may need to be a third party. i mean, how do you reconcile the donald trump universe, which is the view of donald trump and his campaign c.e.o. steve banon, paul ryan the speaker of the house, part of the conspiracy to bring about one-world government, to destroy america through open borders. that's literally their world

view. banon has said to his colleagues that paul ryan is the enemy. how do you reconcile that with paul ryan and with the elite wing of the republican party that believes in all of these orthodoxies that they've supported for the past 20 years? i don't see how those two things join up >> sreenivasan: ryan's task doesn't get any easier after election day. >> it gets harder. he's going to have a reelection for speaker. he's probably gog have a slimmer majority. i don't believe that the house is going to flip, but they may lose some seats. there are quite a few vulnerable members. paul ryan is going to face a more hostile caucus. he is going to have a month of nuclear warfare from the person who has possession of the biggest megaphone in the party. donald trump has been savaging paul ryan. he's been suggesting there's something sinister going on, that paul ryan is masterminding some kind of a plot to undermine him. so that has resonance with the republican base. i can tell you, a lot of folks close to paul ryan are really

worried about the effect, the toxic effect that trump's rhetoric is having among the republican base and the way that they view paul ryan >> sreenivasan: all right, something to keep an eye on. jonathan swan from "the hill,"" thanks for joining us. >> a pleasure. >> sreenivasan: there's another, new international agreement to combat climate change. today, at a summit in rwanda, 140 nations agreed to freeze and then phase down their use of hydrofluorocarbons, chemicals used in air conditioning and refrigerators that also warm the earth's atmosphere. this deal follows last week's formal adoption of the paris climate accords that require members of the united nations to limit emissions of planet- warming gases like carbon dioxide. a quarter of the greenhouse gases emitted from the united states come from transportation-- cars, trucks and planes-- which is one reason something happening in the u.s. auto industry may have

increasing significance, a shift away from cars powered by burning fossil fuels toward cars powered by electric batteries. in tonight's signature segment, newshour weekend special correspondent john larson reports, ten years ago, a documentary asked, "who killed the electric car?" but today, it might be more appropriate to ask, "who saved it?" >> welcome to the stage, mr. elon musk! ( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: when tesla motors c.e.o. elon musk announced in march that his company would build a new all-electric car for the masses, many believed it might be a turning point toward a holy grail of sorts, a combination of cost and range that might somehow attract the mass market of american car buyers and rewrite the more than century-old story of gasoline powered cars. >> we have an amazing product to show you tonight. i think you're going to be blown away. >> reporter: in its first ten years, tesla motors had gone from a silicon valley startup to a small but critically-acclaimed

maker of expensive battery- powered cars. its model s, rolled out in 2012, cost between $60,000 to $120,000 and could go well over 200 miles on a charge at a time when most electric cars couldn't even go 100. as we can attest, the model s is one of the fastest-accelerating cars on the market, powering from zero to 60 in under three seconds. >> so, do you want to see the car? >> yes! >> reporter: musk says his new sedan, the model 3, will cost $35,000, but less than $30,000 with federal rebates, and it will have a driving range of at least 200 miles on a single charge. >> so, what do you think? ( cheers and applause ) >> reporter: within a week, more than 300,000 people ordered the car, placing $1,000 refundable deposits. the factory to build the car wasn't even built yet, and the car would not be available to most who ordered it for two or even three years.

but the pre-orders represented $14 billion in sales, making it the most lucrative rollout of any commercial product of any kind in history. >> you have to understand, you've got car companies that have been around for a century-- ford, general motors, mercedes- benz-- the world's oldest. they've never seen anything like that. >> reporter: "car and driver" magazine executive editor aaron robinson says the public's reaction to tesla's announcement stunned boardrooms around the world. >> you had this case in germany. there was a shareholder meeting at mercedes-benz where people were demanding of the board, "why? how come tesla gets all this attention, and we've never had anything like this? we're falling behind." >> reporter: last week, mercedes-benz introduced a new electric car line at the paris auto show. so did a dozen car manufacturers, including america's g.m. and ford, which now have new electric cars in planning and development. electric cars have a long way to go.

of more than 89 million vehicles projected to be sold worldwide this year, less than 1% are projected to be electric. in the u.s., tesla's model s is projected the top-selling electric car this year, followed by the chevy volt, tesla's model x, the ford fusion energi and the nissan leaf. electric car sales are growing rapidly, up almost 40% in the u.s. this year and 70% globally. >> tesla made electric cars cool. tesla made them driveway jewelry for the wealthy. once you're driveway jewelry for the wealthy, you're then desired by everybody else. >> reporter: in an effort to take electric cars mainstream, for the past year, tesla has been building the world's largest electric battery factory in nevada, called the" gigafactory," to help lower battery costs. it has already built thousands of charging stations that are free to all of its car owners worldwide. tesla's head start for an affordable electric car for the middle class has strong

competition from detroit. >> ladies and gentleman, meet the 2017 chevrolet bolt ev! >> reporter: g.m. c.e.o. mary barra has announced chevrolet will deliver an all-electric vehicle, the bolt, with a range of 238 miles fully-charged for about the same price as tesla's model 3. >> and now, for the real kicker, this isn't some science project or a concept that is years away. the bolt ev will be in production this year. >> reporter: the once viewed as stodgy general motors from detroit may beat the silicon valley darling to market by more than a year. josh tavel is chevrolet's chief engineer for the bolt e.v. >> we talked about the holy grail, right? when you hit that 200-mile mark, that's when the masses start considering, "yeah, maybe this car could be for me." >> reporter: g.m. is already producing the cars at its assembly plant in orion, michigan. unlike tesla, g.m. has massive production capability in place. customers won't have to wait.

g.m. invited newshour weekend to be the first national news broadcast to get a test drive. so, you're betting people when they drive this thing are going to really like it, they just don't know it yet? >> the best thing we can do is just have customers come drive the car, come drive the car for two minutes. get in the car, drive the car. >> rter: the one thing i'll tell the camera that is not a sales pitch is, it's different. there's no question about it. it feels different, it sounds different, drives different. different, meaning the car is unusually quiet. there's no gasoline engine running. and it's surprisingly fast, accelerating from zero to 60 in 6.5 seconds. the cost of charging any electric car varies widely depending on the source of electricity. on average, it costs a driver about three cents a mile. but charging an electric car on the road is not that simple. a tesla plug will not fit a nissan leaf, and the quick charge plug for the leaf will not fit the chevy bolt or the electric vehicles from volkswagen or b.m.w.

>> charging is a little bit like the wild west right now. you have different kinds of charge adapters. this all scares the normal car driver because when you pull into a gas station, it's not like there's different pump shapes and everything. you just stick the pump in, stuff goes in, and then you go. >> reporter: few drivers know more about the charging hurdles than san diego resident tony williams, a retired airline pilot who sells adapters for electric car chargers and consults for the industry. in 2012, he organized an electric car rally, driving from mexico to canada. >> i thought, well, i'll be the first guy to drive from mexico to canada and the first guy to cross oregon and washington on this brand new west coast electric highway. >> reporter: with the range on his car at the time only 80 miles and limited charging points, it took him six days just to get out of california. then, last year, williams drove his tesla model s cross country using tesla's free charging network the whole way. >> and then i returned to the

north through cleveland, chicago and through montana, and then back to washington state, and then all the way 1,100 miles back to here. >> reporter: his total cost for driving 7,500 miles? just a few bucks for using a charger outside the tesla network. >> it was $10 round trip, plus hotels and sandwiches. >> reporter: california, pushing zero emission vehicles, has more than 10,000 public charging stations. the state has spent $51 million putting in thousands of charging connections and will spend $21 million within the next year and a half. public utilities, like san diego gas and electric, seeing a revenue growth opportunity, are planning thousands of charging stations at workplace locations and apartment buildings. across much of the country, dozens of quick charger stations have sprouted up, mainly in big cities. this, for example, is chicago. atlanta. new york. but away from the big cities, like tuscaloosa, alabama? good luck. in the race to make an

affordable, long-range electric car, tesla has been issuing stock and burning through cash, spending billions trying to bring its model 3 to market. >> they've made a huge impression on the industry, but they've also stuck their neck on the chopping block. if you're volkswagen or you're toyota, you're the world's largest car companies, you get to make mistakes. if you're tesla, little tesla, you don't get to make a mistake. it's not guaranteed that these guys are going to make it to the start of production for model 3. my own personal feeling is that they are just barely holding this thing together. >> reporter: and electric vehicle incentives, $7,500 in tax deductions per car from the federal government, are scheduled to phase out. a lot of people say, well, you know, these cars couldn't exist on their own unless there were incentives. what are your thoughts? >> so, i think they're right up until this point. i think there needed to be that push because they didn't exist for these vehicles to start existing.

but i think these cars aren't going to continue because the government is putting money on the hood in incentives. i think customers are going to value what electrification can bring. >> reporter: so far, g.m. has no plans to help build quick charging networks across the country as other car companies have. tony williams believes it might be 20 years before electric car charging stations are as mainstream as gasoline stations. >> emission requirements aren't going away. they may wish they would or they would hope they could pay lobbyists to make them go away or complain a lot, but they're not. and global warming i don't believe is going to go away, either. so, the combination of the two events, with continued, constant and increasing political pressure, is the only thing that is going to make manufacturers adopt electric drive in that ten to 20-year period, and i do believe that will happen. >> reporter: "car and driver's" aaron robinson, who loves gasoline cars, also owns an older model electric car with a range of 60 miles.

>> most people don't drive 200 miles every day. they drive 20, 30, maybe 40 miles a day. all of the electric cars, including the one we're currently in, will fit those needs. >> sreenivasan: as climate change forces polar bears onto land, native alaskans are using specialized containers to protect their food. visit our web site at www.pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: a joint investigation by the associated press and "u.s.a. today networ"" has found in the first six months of this year gun accidents killed at least one child in the united states every other day. the report published yesterday analyzed more than 1,000 deaths and injuries from accidental shootings involving children ages 17 and younger between january 2014 and this june. joining me now to talk about this is one of the reporters of that story, ryan foley, a member of a.p.'s national reporting team focused on state government coverage. he's in iowa.

first of all, what's the purpose of the investigation? what prompted it in the first place? >> so, we wanted to take a more comprehensive look at these shootings, why they were happening, who the victims were, what types of guns were being used. and we also knew that there wasn't a lot of government research into these questions >> sreenivasan: how do we keep track of them today and what did your investigation look at? >> we started with data from the gun violence archive which is a national group that tries to track every single gun incident in the united states. so we took their data going back to 2014 and looked at more than 1,000 cases involving minors who were involved in these unintentional shootings >> sreenivasan: aren't there statistics from law enforcement or through the government? >> the only government data that's available comes from the c.d.c., and we found that, that data is very incomplete. for 2014, they only listed 74 unintentional firearms deaths involving minors.

we actually found over 110. and the c.d.c. admits it is undercounting these because many local coroners classify these shootings as homicides other than unintentional or accidental >> sreenivasan: it looks like different populations under 17 have higher rates. why do kid three and under have such a high rate? what's the similarity with teenagers? >> there's a large spike in the number of these shootings involving three- and four-year-olds. in many cases they're able to access their parents' unsecured loaded guns. and they also pointed them back at their own faces, we found, and shot thenselves by accident. then the data shows there's another large spike for children ages 15 through 17, and those usually involve groups teenagers who manage to obtain a gun and it accidentally goes off and kills a sibling or a friend >> sreenivasan: what efforts have been made on either a national or state level to try to prevent these gun deaths?

>> on the national level right now, there's really not a lot going on. congress severely limited the funding that's available back in the 1990s to the c.d.c. many former c.d.c. officials will tell you that's been a major setback >> sreenivasan: what about safer gun storage? >> there's certainly a push, local and state level, to encourage safe gun storage, and that's a key finding here. but gun safety advocates will argue that a lot more does need to be done, first of all, to even study how big of a problem it is, the government used to do an annual survey where they asked americans how they stored their guns. the c.d.c. stopped asking that question in 2004 on a nationwide level, and just this year, the state officials who run that survey decided not to reintroduce those questions >> sreenivasan: all right, ryan foley of the associated press joining us from iowa today. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me.

>> this is pbs newshour weekend, saturday. >> sreenivasan: secretary of state john kerry today opened a new round of talks in switzerland to end the war in syria. kerry was joined by envoys from half a dozen middle east nations and the foreign minister of russia, which intervened militarily a year ago to back syrian president bashar assad. since a cease-fire brokered by the u.s. and russia collapsed a month ago, assad's air strikes, backed by russian warplanes, have been unrelenting in rebel- held areas of the city of aleppo. i.t.n.'s dan rivers has more. >> reporter: a shattering bombardment rained down into rebel-held parts of the city. here there is no peace, no weekend no, escape. we have been given permission to enter the government-controlled western half of the city, the journey that involves driving the length of this war-ravaged

country. this road is vital. it's secure bide a mixture of iranian and hezbollah forces, fighters who, with russian air power, has helped turn the tide of this conflict. driving into what was once one of the middle east's great cosmopolitan cities is shocking. leap used to lay claim to being the oldest, continuously inhabited city of the world. today, it the most dangerous. the front lean is just a few blocks away. there is death and tragedy on both sides of this city this, the aftermathave rebel attack on a school. a mortar landed just as children were arriving. but without doubt, it is the rebel-held areas that are taking the greatest pounding. we watched the sickening shelling that has become a normality here, something president assad insisted was essential. >> you have to clean. you have to keep cleaning this area and push the terrorists to turkey, to go back to where they

come from or to kill them. >> reporter: victory, if it ever comes, will come at far too high a price >> sreenivasan: finally, there's word from those diplomatic talks in lausanne, switzerland, that shiites in yemen have released two held captive in the country. they were flown to lujan according to secretary kerry. they called the release a humanitarian gesture and called for the release of the few other americans thought to be detained in yemen. the freed americans join some of the wounded from last week's funeral hall bomb, flying to oman for better medical care. that's all for this edition of "pbs newshour weekend." i'm hari sreenivasan, have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made

possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. judy and josh weston. the cheryl and philip milstein family. the john and helen glessner family trust. supporting trustworthy journalism that informs and inspires. sue and edgar wachenheim, iii. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. tat's why we are your retirement company. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

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