captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, october 7: after a divided confirmationtt le, brett kavanaugh is sworn in as the newest supreme court justice. brazilians head to the polls as the far-right candidate for president widens his lead. and in our signature segment: john waters, pushing the limits with h new retrospective:" indecent exposure." >> i was never frightened to-- to try new stuff because that's what people would expect if they come to see my show.ey ant to be taken sometimes into a world that they might feel uncomfortable with. >> sreenivasan: next on pbs newshour weekend. >>s newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana t.

vagelos. the j.p.b. foundation. rosalind p. walter. barbara hope zuckerberg.or coe funding is provided by mutual of america-- designing customized individual and group retirement products. at's why we're 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 ann thank you for g us. the animosity and bitter arguments about the newest supreme court justice brett kavanaugh continued today, in washington and on the campaign trail. kavanaugh was sworn in as an associate justice at the supreme court yesterday evening. the senate confirmed his nomination just a few hours before by one of the narrowest,

of margi-to-48, largely along a part cline vote. atpaign rally last night, president trump called on his supporters to vote for republicans in the ug midterm elections, and he characterized the democratic opposition to kavanaugh as "mob rule." >> youon't hand matches to an ou don't give power to an angry left-wing mob, and that's what they've become. >> sreenivasan: even though the confirmation is over, believings kavanaugh veis accuser is still a divisive issue. senator susan collins of maine reiterated her position that she saw no corroborating evidence.li >> i do not e that brett kavanaugh was her assailant. i do believe that she was assaulted. i don't know by whom and i'm not certain when. >> sreenivasan: but believing one part of ford's testimony and not the rest has democrats like senator mazihirono of hawaii

concerned. >> to say that she thinks that dr. ford thinks that she was assaulted,hat is that? is she mistaken? she herself said that she's heard from so many survivors from her state and elsewhere. all of us have been hearing stories of, and accounts from survivors going back many, many years, where they kept all these painful, traumatic accounts to themselves. and this is what happens with sexual assau survivors, that they do not come forward. >> sreenivasan: one of the central players during the senate judiciary com confirmation hearings for justice kavanaugh was arizona republic flake is retiring this year, and the two candidates vying for his seatboth members of congress are in a close race. for more othe candidates, democratic representative kyrsten sinema and republican representative mtha mcsally, and the issues, we're joined now by arizona public media political reporter chrtopher conover who is in tucson. >> sreenivasan: first, let's esarn a little bit about candidates, how they

differentiate themselves. >> hari, these two candidates have track records and well-known in the arizona, and really how they are differentiating themselves on this election is they are ruing with the party lines for the most part. representati mcsally has moved too the right, and is strongly backing the president. ae said recently she hopes he comes torizona before election day to campaign with herand representative sinema, who spent time in congress trying to reaci across thee and make derself a moderate, has really aligned with mocrats on most issues during this campaign. >> sreenivasan: all riht. so we see increase in polarity that is happening in the rest of the country playing out in this pce. what the issues thople in arizona are most concerned about or -- well, and then what are the candidates saying the issues are most important? sometimes they are not the same. >> they aren't the same. education is a big issue in arizona. and of course to a lesser amoun on the federal side of things, that's much more of a state

issue. the border and healthcare are also big issues in arizona, of course arizona being a border state. representive mcsally has really been pushing on the border and representative sinema has really been pushing on the healthcare issue, soing to split that vote and again very similar to what we see in polling of republicans and democratic voters. >> sreenivasan: is there an event that has catalyzed the base on boidth ses here to be more interested in this race? >> it really has been the retirement of jeff flake, havino en seat as most people know nate.rarity in the u.s. se so people really started paying attention to it. certainly the events surrounding the confirmation and swearing in of justice kavanaugh have brought out more voters is what most people will expect and like the rest of the country, galvanize both sides. >> sreenivasan: you haveot a population that likes to vote

early, so you have got almost two election days here. we do. >> early ballots go out in is just a few daychs whieans by the weekend, people will have their ballots tting on the kitchen table, and typically, we see a big surge oivotesthin the first few days and then it trickles off and stays pretty steady, so -- and most vote early by mail so we really do have two election days, of course, both parties and lots of outsiders this time are pushing for voter registration drives here in pema county in southern arizona between the primary in august and last week more than 25,000 new people registered to vote. how many of them voty? we don't know how many of them ere is a big drive to registert more voters in arizona. >> ishere an indication of how ething is are head som mean because as you say, if people -- if some people are going to sta making up thir

minds now and of course we have got several weeks up to the election, there could be events that change things, but those people who are going to fill out their ballots at the kitchen table in the nt week and a half, where are they leaning? >> right now the polls in this ce have representative sinema, the democrat leading by a fewhi points, but withe margin of error. this race has been very tight l to the way along. what is interesting, though, is the undecid percent undecided, according to the latest polls. d with balts going out in just a few days that is a big number. we expect to see even more tv ads, local tv is flooded with ads right now from both o candidates atside groups supporting them, we expect to see more in the coming days. >> sreenivasan: all right,co christophever reporter from arizona public media, thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: >> sreenivasan: secretary of state mike pompeo met with north kore leader kim jong un toda in pyongyang. they met for several hours and focused on north korea's plans

for denuclearization. eetpeo sent an optimistic following the meeting: "had a good trip to pyongyang to meet with chairman kim. we continue to make progress on agreements m singapore summit." he then flew to seoul, south korea following his tr pyongyang where he told south korean preside moon jae-in that today's talks were "another step forward." pompeo is scheduled to travel to beijing next before arriving back in the us tomorrow. haiti was hit by a magnitude 5.9 earthquake last nighling at least 11 people and injuring more than 100 more. the earthquake struck off the country's north coast, collapsing buildings and sending people running for safety. thtremor was one of the largest to hit haiti since a magnitude seven quake in 2010 hit near the capital of port-au- prince, killing hundreds of thousands of people. turkish authorities believe that a saudi journalist and "washington post" contributor who vanished after entering saudi arabia's consulate in tanbul was murdered. jamal khashoggi entered the consulate on tuesday to secure papers for his upcoming marriagn

has not been seen since. khashoggi had been living inmp selfed exile in washington for the past year fearingfo retributiopublicly eiticizing the saudi kingdom. turkey's presidentogan said today that he is personally following the missing persons investigation. the saudi consul general says that his country is assisting in the search for the journalist and has denied any involvement in his disappearance. china admitted for the first time today that it is holding thpresident of the international police agency interpol who has been missing since september 25th and interpol says he has "resigned". meng hongwei is also china's vice minister for public security and traveled regularly between interpol's headquarts in lyon, france and china. his wife, grace meng, spoke with reporters in lyon today, where she kept her identity shielded, and showed them the final text she received from her husband-- an image of a knife. she said the image arrived four

minutes after a message that said "wait for my call." a call that never came. less than an hour after she a'spoke, a statement on ch ruling communist party website said that e 64-year-old meng is "suspected of violating the law" and is currently under investigion by the state supervision commission. bosnians went to the polls today to choose leaders for their complex government. the install a pro-russian nationalist to a top post.te the ay also show whether or not bosnia will move toward integration into the european union and nato. bosnia consists of two regions witheparate governing bodies one serb and the other muslim- oat, the result of a pea accord signed after the three and a half year war that ended in 1995.ca giant booms in the pacific ocean help sweep up tons of plastic waste? read about it on our website at pbs.org/newshour.

>> sreenivasan: it is election day in brazil and a far-right, populist candidate is leadinin a field of 13 candidates for president. jair bolsonaro voted this morning and predicted he would win without a run-off. the formerly-fringe candidate spent part of the last few weeks of the campaign in the hospital after a near-fatal stabbing, and has surged ahead in recent polling. joining us now from rio de cneiro via skype is "new york times" brazil bureef ernesto londoño. >> sreenivasan: so first tell me, how did he get to where he is today considering that he was not a major party dismeand. >> many brlians are stretching, scratching their heads asking themselves tha same question. a year ago, many people here in the ruling elite, political establishment would have told you thiman does not snd a chance. this is a congressman who has little to show for hs seven terms in office, and somebody who was the odd poitician who

spoke approvingly of brazil's military dictatoship and alo stacked up a bunch of very controversial remarks about women, about black people, about gays, many people assumed that he was just too toxic to be viable candidate. however, somethis remarkable ppened in recent weeks, brazilians are so fed up with potics as usual they are so terrified of the level of crime, and theyre so eager to see the anti-corruption crusade that the authorities have launched in recent years, cotinue without any obstruction, that they are pinning their hopes on this man who says he has answers to these problems. >> sreenivasan: as you described this guy, thi candidate who might be president of brazil, it is almost like a checklist of what happened in the unitedtes before donald trump. >> absolutely. there are many similarities. one of them is that he launched a remblarunorthodox campaign while some of his rivals wereow

spending, you lots of money on a conventional ad campaigns, on marketing firms, jair bolsonaro provided almost exclusively on his on social media to build a base. this is a candidate who was not being backed by one of the bigtr itional parties with national reach which in the past has been crucial to win a presidential election, but he tapped into social media, his followers created this vast networks of chat groups on te what's ap messaging platform are he is on facebook all the time speaking his mind very unscripted, exemely shaky videos, and people who are very nungry for authenticity saw i him somebody who was being very authentic and the currency of that see to be very high? brazil. >> what is the core or at are e core issues driving people to the polls? is it about the economy? is it about cri? >> i would say first and foremost brazil is grappling with an unprecedented level of

crime, violent crime across the country, particularly in the northeast and in some of th large cities like rio de janeiro. you know, some people start their days looking at aps the way you and i might check the weather in tnited states to see where there are shootings happening so thethcan plaeir daily commute. this is how sort of deeply the fear of crime has seeped into people's routine. but also i heink is for a number of years there has been a sense that politicians in this country have become something of, you know, a eclectic, have become esscentially eclec- crats, stealing with abandon and with impuni for many yrs and they are only looking after their own interests and their own pocketbook. so along comes this congressman who has been three decades in office and who has been uncontained by corruption allegations and he says, i wl make sure that if we upend this game, that we change the way politics is played in this

country and we root out rat. >> sreenasan: all right, brazil's bureau chief for "the new york times", ernesto londono, joining us live from sky from rio, thank you so much. >> my pleasure. >> >> sreivasan: filmmaker john waters became famous for groundbreaking cult films thatan have provokeeven shocked audiences, stretching the boundaries of good taste to what some conder the breaking point. this weekend, a major retrospective of his visual artwork opens in his home town at the baltimore museum of art. newshour weekend's christopher booker recently sat down with waters to discuss film, photography, and the art of making people uncomfortable. >> reporter: there was a time when it wasn't safe to like john waters. once dubbed the pope of trash the writer and director spent years pushing the boundaries of cinematic decency. >> you're sick, repulsive!

>> you my dear are dead! >> reporter: his incendiary films from the '60's and '70's tirizing violence, celebrity and sexuality, shocked audienceu the world. films like "multiple maniacs," a "female troubl "pink flamingos," his 1972 underground classic starring drag-queen icon divine, were censored and banne. in some countr but audiences couldn't get enough. >> i t to eavesdrop and spy on people. that's my job is to go out and report to the unwashed public, my fans, the unfathomable behavior of americans. >> reporter: by the end of the 1980's, the world of john waters had started to aract a more mainstream audience, driven in large part by the 1988 release of pg-rated "hairspray." but even though his work had expanded beyond the underground, waters never stopped trying to antagonize our taste's, and not erst in the movies. he has challenged a's palette of decency in books, on broadway, even on the walls of the contemporary art world. >> oh good they are going to put one here.

lets see. so this is a self-portrait. >> reporter: and now for the first time, some of this work ajhas been collected for a retrospective for the baltimore museum of art. it's approprialy titled" indecent exposure." a lot of these pieces you haven't seen in yes? >> no, because they have been in collectors' homes, so we had to find them to get tm back. it is amazing to walk through it. i haven't seen any of them really until after i had the show. >> reporter: with over 160 photographs, sculptures, soundwolrks and videos," indecent exposure" includes all the idiosyncratic subversiveness synonymous with john waters.>> at these gosh darn chickens! >> reporter: there's "childrene, who sma montage of some of hollywood's most beloved child stars as cigarette smokers..k or "sneaky j "a replica doll of america's 35th president wearing one of jacqueline kennedy's gowns or "beverly , lls john," a reimagined self- portrait of wated he elected to have plastic surgery. >> i think people are going to say "oh, he got work." they are just going to think i look like that now.

i believe there will be pet face lifts, if there isn't already. they would have ma one.sie get i was never frightened to-- to try new stuff because that's what people would expeo if they comee my show. they want to be taken sometimes htinto a world that they m feel uncomfortable with. and i'm their guide, though. because i don't think i'm mean. i might ask you to consider k,mething but i don't think, if i'm trying to sh'm trying to make you laugh at the same time. because i'm still amazed by things that i don't understand. that's what always interests me, that there is no clear answer to it. it it's much harder to make 'em laugh. so when i was in catholic school i was obsessed with writing 7734 over and over. so you can have this on your wall, it is like a mood ring, you can turn this upside down to hell. >> reporter: the retrospective moves between the mischievous and the macabre. some of the work offer reimagings of some of our culture's shared tragedy. >> thi childhood memory, this movie that i loved as a kid were flying saucers attack

washington, but now when you put it with 9/11 it makes it very, very terrible that it coulda happen today impletely different way. >> reporter: but a constant throughout the exhibit is water's continued appetite to prod and provoke our love of film, television and celebrity. mass media is his medium. or and that's elizabeth ta getting a facelift where her mustache turns basically into my mustache, so i am just writing with different images from different films to tell a completely different story that wasn't there. >> reporter: do you find a greater supply of motivational fuel, given the expansion of media and unbelievable explosion of pop culture, and celebrity culture? >> the media to me is my soap opera. every day i watch it and i still get six newspapers deliveredy. every da i still consume the news a lot, which i think if you write comedy in any way, you have to be on top of what the news is. it's fun to me. i like writing, i like telling grstories, even in the phohs from the artwork i do, and i even hate to call it artwork, because that's up to others tosa not to me. i always say when people say, "i'm an artist." oh really? i believe history will be the

judge of that. but at the same time, you know, i'm going toay, i'm a photographer, then it sounds like i'm ansel adams. you know? i have a piece called, cancel ansel, which is actually where i scw up his photography, by putting in his beautiful scenery, like cruise ships, and, and you know, litter, and naked peop swimming, and that kind of thing. >> reporter: there is an intimidation, especially as it relates to the contemporary arti world,f, and you know, if you're not in the club, it's frightening to try to get in? l >> well,ed that about it, that it's a secret biker club that hates you. i even have a piece that says, "contemporary art hates you." because it does, if you hate it first. it's a thin line. you can't have contempt it and go in, but you have to learn, you have to study a little. yohave to figure it out. why these things happen and then upsuddenly this whole worl opens up to you. you can see it in a completely different way. e blindke, you w before. >> reporter: do you think it would be hard to set out on your ?course as young person n

>> it might be easier, because totart out today, because every hollywood studio is looking for the next kid that made a movie with a ll phone. they weren't when i was. it's-- it's still tough. it's always going to be tough, and if you have to askow can i do i you'll never do it. you have-- the whole thing is to figure out hto to do it. hoet in there, and figure out how to do it. and this one is to inspire orde every day of my life i have a file card that i write down what i have to do and i cross it off. so get busy. he reporter: the thing is, are all crossed off! so you did them. >> i did them all, yeah! and so, this is called 300 days, whatever its called, its 300 days. >> reporter: were you orderly as a kid? >> no! i took l.s.d. every day! i wasn't orderly! if you want to be in-- an artist, go to all the art shs, read the art magazines, figure out which gallery would be the best one for you, that shows work you like, that maybe might do it, you know? you have to learn how the whole thing works, and have an intest in it. which i-- i always did. and this is another tabloid one if there were a tabloid fors. intellectu

>> reporter: yeah. >> it is certainly a intellectual's secret life. i never understand when people say, you're bored-- you're bored. just walk outside and watch people. sit in an airpt. i make up a story about every single person as they're getting off the ane-- instant bio, in one second, you know. >> reporter: what do you think will last long, your-- your visual work, or-- or your films? >> i don't know, you know. >> reporter: do you evenhink that way >> well you think that way, sure you do, that's why you keep rking in a way. i think that maybe my whole-- it would be all remembered as one thing that i've done, you know. because my books, and my spoken word shows, and it's all telling stories. generally, you know, when i die, grink flamingos" will be in the first-- first pah of my obituary, and "hairspray," before this probably. if they write it! who knows, you-- you can go out of fashion really quickly. you know, and people-- you know, forget. i mean, itepends how much longer. i'm-- not going to live that long, really. to live down the trole i've left! >> this is pbs newshour weekend,

sunday. >> sreenivasan: there's another side of john waters that some people might not know: for ahi popularity, the filmmaker, visual artist and author is not a social media user.s he ans to send letters to a small bookstore in his hometown of baltimore, maryland lled atomic books. he invited newshour weekend's chris booker there to find out what some of those fans are saying. >> this is a bookstore that only keashz kind of ricd books. books about extreme subjects. it is not the typical bookstore but it is better than any typical bookstore. now this is a book all about the baltimore freddie gray riots but the tweets of people that were riotin so it has some stuff that is pretty funny, like i did her hair this morning and it ihs ing up when she is throwing a brick, there is a stocking stuffer, i tell yo, it is really, really a good one.g >> all riht. yes, i do get the fan mail here,

let's see, what do we have heren i get some pretty amazing letters here. yep. good. >> how long -- >> well, i a -- i read them all, i don't know, but i read them all, well i read some of them, it has to behort and good that don't write tiny scare me stop me before i kill again handwriting but i get amazing stuff in he people write really touching stuff that say freddie arm son that first wrote to me about when heavies kid saying how come you get sent to canada and i get sent to the school psy you will get there, i got. >> you were stunned you wrote him back. >> kids write me and it is amazing how they say you help me get through school. >> well i wrote a book called role models who helped me, so i am thrilled if i can be anybody a role mod . >> i woube scared if i were their parents. , >> it is truly amazie stuff that is in here. and i answer very few of themon but the goos i answer.

they have to be really good. >> >> sreenivasan: finally tonight, tomorrow is columbus day, a holiday for many government workers and a day of traditional italian-american celebrations honoring the explorerch stopher columbus. but the holiday is a divisive issue, with some cities now calling it indigenous peoples day. and this year, for the first time in its history, the city of columbus, ohio will not give its workers the day off or officially celebrate columbus day. instead, columbus will make veterans day a paid holiday. a spokesperson for the city said the decision was made because it is important to honor veteransd cause the city can't afford to give its employees both days off. that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. i'm hari sreenivasan.in thanks for wat have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet ptioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org

>> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: bernard and irene schwartz. sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the cheryl and philip milstein family. dr. p. roy vagelos and diana te s. the j.p.b. foundation. p rosaliwalter. barbara hope zuckerberg. corporate funding is provided by mutual of america-- nd designing customizedidual and by the corporation for public broadcasting, and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like u.u. thank

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