ctaptioning sponsored by newshour prons, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, a criticalote under increasing scrutiny. we examine the president's claims about mail in b and what we need to know. then, underwater: how the storm named sally has created devastating floods across the southeast. and, cost of a vaccine-- we dig into the economics behind the push to combat covid-19. >> there should be no reason that pharma companies should be having exclusive licenses to charge whatever they want. >> woodruff: all that and more on tonight's pbs newshour.

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of international peace and security. at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these institutions: and individuals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting.on and byibutions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> woodruff: with about six weeks untielection day, how americans will vote has only grown more contentious. e security of elections and mail in ballots was once again at the topf mind for many ficials in washington today. our william brangham begins our coverage.

>> brangham: the day started with another inaccuratt from president trump about mail- in voting. lythe president has repeat made false statements about o is being sent mail-in ballots, and what mail-in voting could mean for the election. today, he asserted falsely tha"" the nov 3rd ection result may never be accurately determined"" on capitol hill today, f.b.i. director christopher wray told congress that proven election meddling is coming from russia. the russians aren't targeting election infrastructure, wray said, but stirring up division. >> certainly have seen very active very active efforts by the russians to influence our election in 2020, through what i would call more than malign foreign influence side of things social media use of proxies state media online journals, etc, an effort to both sow diviveness and discord and, and i think the intelligence community has assessed this to

primarily to denigrate vice president biden. >> brangham: wray's testimony comes a week after a department of homeland securityled that he was told to tamp down intelligence relating to russian interference. but last night, president trumps downplayed theof foreign influence, instead saying, again, with no evidence behind his statement, that democratic governors mailing out ballots would be the gravest threat come november. >> our biggest threat to this election is governors from gposing parties, controll ballots, millions of ballots. to me, that's remuch bigger than foreign countries because much of the stuff coming out abouforeign countries turned out to be untrue. >> brangham: today in an op-ed in thenew york times," president trump's former hand- picked director of natnal intelligence, dan coats, warned of the stakes, writing: "the most urgent task american ileaders fato ensure that the election's results are

accepteds legitimate. electoral legitimacy is the essential linchpin of our entire political culture." coats went on to offer a potential solution, calling on congress to create a "bipartisan and nonpartisan commission to oversee the election." he said the key goal should be reassuring the american people that their votes will count. for the pbs newshour, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: there were two court rulings today, bearing on all of this. a federal judge in washington state issued a nationwide injunction against postal service changes that have slowed mail service. disenfranchised.could be and the pennsylvania supremeco t ordered that deadlines for mail-in voting be eased, and that more llot collection tes be set up.

>> woodruff: now, our second major story-- the aftermath of hurrice "sally." the storm moved east and kept dumping rain today. in its wake, heavy flooding along the gulf coast kept rescuers busy, while others began the clean-up. john yang has our report. >> it's been mighty bad d our state is reeling just as our people are hurting. >> yang: hundreds of thousands of people across the gulf coast were without power this morning, in the aftermath of hurricane sally. alabama governor kay ivecalled for patience as her state recovers. >> y'all, i know it's uncomfortable and downright scary to be sitting in therk ss of your home without any light. but please be patient. >> yang: alabama has seen at least one fatality. o the mayor ofnge beach said one person died there and another is missing, as the small coastal city grapple continued floods.gh over the storm weakened

from a category 2 hurricane to a tropical depressio but heavy rains continue to pound gulf coast communities. ke in pensacola, florida, where bloated waters reduced boat docks to driftwood.do in perey, residents like this business owner are picking up the pieces of buildings, destyed by sally's 100-mile- plus winds. those winds also toppled the spire at this mobile, alabama church. the ail of destruction has some coastal residents reflecting on the place they call home. rockbond of pascagoula mississippi calls his bo on the singing river a piece of paradi, but a risky one. >> the water comes up, and it takes the wood and the beams, and it lifts the whole tng up, and it pulls the pilings out of the ground. so, this hurricane-- living in this area and enjoying this kind of paradise, there's a price to pay. >> yang: sally's slow pace as it moves north is also putting swaths of the south east under flash and coastal flood warnings. today, thick rain clouds hover over downtown atlanta, as sally

barreled through georgia with up to two inches of rainfall. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: in e day's other news, new unemployment claims fell to 860,000 last but layoffs from the pandemic remained at historic highs. meanwhile, airline executives were at the white house, warninh may have to cut 40,000 jobs next month, unless congress can pass a new relief bill. the world health organizationga warned todayst letting politics affect pandemic policy. that came after president trump publicly criticized dr. robert redfield, the head of the c.d.c., for his statements on masks and vaccines. mewhile, a former homeland security aide to vice president pence, olivitroye, said she's

voting for joe biden because mr. trump has put re-eleion ahead of saving human lives. we'll return to pandemic politicsafter the news summary. new york city has again ostponedn-person schooling for more than one million students. mayor bill deblasiannounced today that most elementary school students will return to the classroom on september 29th. middle and high schoolers will start october 1st. deblasio said schools need more time. >> we have to have social distancing throughout schools, cleaning constantly, faceve ngs on students and adults alike, a host of measures that had to be put in place, all system-wide. we're continuing to deepen those efforts because we have to meet that gold standard for the good >> woodruff: the city's schools are still wrestling with shortages of staff and supplies. smoke over parts of the fire-

ravaged west coast cleared some today, for the first time in days. still, air quality o portland, oregon and other cities remained at hazardous fire crews hope thttered rain expected this weekend will help douseore of the fires, and dissipate the smoke. e head of the f.b.i. say agents are focused on violent extremism,ot ideology, in nationwide protests over racial injustice. director christopher wray testified at a house hearing today. it followed reports that a federal crackdown on violence during ptests has netted more than 300 arrests. and, on wall street, stocks gave grou on concerns about the economy, and doubts that congress will pass more pandemic aid. the dow jones industrial average lost 130 points to close at 27,902. the nasdaq fell 140 points, and, the s&p 500 slipped 28.

still to come on the newshour: the economics behind the race for a covid vaccine. bob woodward on his explosive new book on the president. and much more. >> woouff: the president is again contradicting some top health officials about the timing of a vaccine and effectiveness of masks. yesterday, c.d.c. director d doctor robert redfield t senate committee he believ a vaccine would not bl widely avaito most americans before theiddle of next year. people at higher risk or medical workers or first responders are likely to get it soo but he said greater mask use was

the st essential way to protect americans. >> i may even go so far as to say this facemask is guaranteed to protect me against covid thao when i take d vaccine because the immunogenicity may be 70% and if i don't get an immune response, the vaccine won't protect me. this face mask will. >> woodruff: hours later, the president rejected what redfield and other scientists have said. he insisted 100 million doses of a vaccine would be widely distributed before the end of this year. but today, the head of moderna, company would likely notsaid his distribute its vaccine widelyco until the half of next year. president trump also downplayed thduse of masks once again disputed redfield. >> i thinke made a mistake en he said that, it's just incorrect information. i mean i think there's a lot of problems with maiss.

no, vaccinuch more ifective than the masks, but no the mask is not ortant as the vaccine that masks perhaps helps. >> woodruff: all of this comes as the c.d.c. announced it expects to distribute vacces to the public at no cost to the patient. but there are gnificant t'estions and criticisms about what the governmgoing to pay for vaccines overall with taxpayer money and whethersh companield be able to profit from it. economics correspondent paul solman dives into the part of the story for our series, "making sense." >> reporter: a newsreel from 1955, on the polio vaccine. >> an historic victory over a dread disease. >> reporter: the vaccine's inventor, dr. jonas salk literally gave it away. >> who owns e patent on this vaccine? >> the people i would say. there is no patent. could you patent the sun? >> the pandemic is a crisis. >> reporter: 65 years later,

pope francis thinks the covid-1u vaccine follow the polio >> (etranslated ): it would be a scanl if our economic system, supported by public funds, contributes only to companies instead of the common good. >> reporter: no question publicu s are driving the huge covid vaccine effort. >> it's called operation warp spee that means big and it ans lst. >> reporter: butooming over ieration warp speed is a huge question: how muthe public, through thgovernment, paying private companies? >> there is no reason private pharmaceutical companies should be profiteering o. of a pandem >> reporter: osaremay okolo is the chief health policy aide for illinois democrat jan schakowski. >> yes or no, will you sell your vaccine at cost. so that we can verify you aren't making a profit. >> reporter: merck's vaccine has received $38illion in government funding. julie gerberding is executive >> no, we will not be selling

vaccine at cost, although it'sre very premaor us since we're a long way from really understanding the cost basis of where we'll end up. >> so dr. hoge, yes or no? >> reporter: stephen hoge is c.e.o. of moderna, which by some lymeasures has gotten near $1.5 billion in federal funding-- all the money it's put into the vaccine-- and will get another billion and a half if it succeeds. >> we will not sell cost, no ma'am. >> reporter: which is why health policy wonks like olo are up in arms. >> there should be no reason that pharma companies should be having exclusive licenses to control distribution of these drugs, to control the price and access not only in the united states, but across the world. r eporter: charge whatever w tht to, a u.s. government desperate for a vaccine, any ne, running a tab that w taxpayers will ultimately pick up. >> i have an incurable blood >> reporter: longtime public health advocate davimitchell is founder of tients for affordable drugs. >> my doctors have me on a four-

drug combination that carries a list price of $900,00 a year. so i care deeply about vaccines a at will be affordable because if you have ood cancer and if you're taking chemotherapy, both of which i am, thenhe risk of a very bad outcome from covid 19 is high. so i want a vaccine real bad. >> reporter: but if it's a vaccine we already subsized, is the government, and therefor, taxpayeally going to have to pay again? >> the white house says that we've pumped $12 billion to these drug companies for operation warp speed. we are effectively underwriting upd, clinical trials, standing roduction capability and even producing, paying to produce the drugs. >> reporter: just consider moderna's contract: three billion dollars to immunize 50 million americans. so not to personalize this too much, but i have paid tenll

s for every member of my family already to develop the moderna vaccine. d so has every other american. >> that's correct. but only about one in six americans would get thosel mitiases. >> reporter: petbarduke of the ralph nader non-profit, public citizen. how much is it going to erst for every an to get immunized? >> it'd be about ten billion dollars total u.s. government investment. the u.s. government has options to purchase hundds of millions of more doses from moderna. up to 25million people. >> reporter: so that's something like $40 frothe u.s. imvernment to moderna for every american who getnized. doesn't sound so bad. >> but that's not really the point here. the u.s. government appears to -own this vaccine. it can insist on reasonable pricing and conditions. and if you look at comparabletr vaccines, asazeneca will charge no more than eight dollars per person. ite price really could be a bit lower.

>> reporter: but who knows for how long these prices will holdp when tdemic ends, and we might still need an annual covid shot that we might have to pay for out of pocket. >> we are really over a barrel if these kind of guarantees aren't written into the itial contracts. >> reporter: and thus the simple question, says health journalist dr. elisabeth rosenthal: >> why are we paying or something that the government itself largely developed? government institutions created the platforms for many of these new really innovative vaccines. and we are now paying through barda, through the defense department program to ramp up production, manufacturing, distri'ttion. so have paid already? >> reporter:nd as a result, in the case of moderna, enriching its private investors by public investment that has liy ipled the company's stock value? okay, sure; drug companies will profit. t-- and this iwhere th argument changes direction-- why is that a proble >> y want vaccines to be

someat profitable because you innt manufacturers to be nted to make them. >> reporter: stock analyst evan siegerman puts the time-honored case for pfits succinctly. >> it is important that they are allowed to make some sort of a profit so that they will continue to invest in research and development in manufacturing. and of course, distribion. >> we live and benefit from medical cures.>> eporter: look, the stakes are life-and-dth, says adam mossoff, a free-market enthusiast at george mason university. the companies need profits, he says. >> if they're going to continue doing more r&d into new drugs and new medical treatments that have made modern life a veritable miracle by any historical standards. i mean, what were just death sentences 10, 20 years ago, cancer, diabetes, hepatitis are now manageable day to day conditions thanks to the types of investments and the thousands, millions of labor hours put in by researchers and scientists in the biopharmaceutical industry. >> reporter: but our skeptics don't buy the profit motive story. s ome of the money we spend is plowed back into development,th an's hugely useful.

but also, you know, we should p look at harmaceuticale companies spending for marketing, for promotion. >> reporter: which, for the ten largesu.s. based prescription drug companies, is actually ngmost as much as r&d spen add in profits and it's far more.>> joke that it used to be that a, you know, nobel prize was motivaon enough. but, all of our drug makers are now publicly traded mostly or privately owned foprofit companies. >> reporter: but to health economist katherine baicker where we are with regard to covid vaccine pricing is okay, even with e huge government subsidies. at least for now. >> i don't think we can count the government to be responsible for all of the refinement and invention that we need for all medicines, because it just requires a lot of ingenuity. and the incentives that we have in the private market are what drives a lot of innovation.

>> reporter: and invites a lot of competition.t >> you wople to be encouraged to make vaccines. if you have more than one manufacturer, the price is likely to go down. >> reporter: remember, says baicker... >> these vaccines arworth trillions of dollars to the world. there's so much value to be created that there's room for there to be economic gain to the people who invested in the medicine, whether that's private sector or public, as well as much greater benefits to the public in the form of improved health and resumed economic. activi >> reporter: as long as peopleke t, and it doesn't become prohibitively expensive down the line. for the pbs newshour, paul solman. >> woodruff: we turn now to the political fallout facing president trump, aminew reporting from veteran journalist bob woodward of "the

washington post." woodward's newest book, "rage" features 18 on-the-record interviews and recordings of president trump, ranging from his handling of the coronavirusu to racial ice. bob woodward joins me now. and, bob woodward, congratulations on this book. this is a president about whom so much has been written. what of all the time you spent with him do you think adds thmo to our understanding of who donald trump is? >> well, it is a look into his mind. i asked him, what's the job of the president? he said, to protect the people. he failed in that, and he failed to tell the trut tragically. >> woodruff: so these dire warningshat were given to him is.january, he knew th you cite tony fauci saying he had a minus number attention span. you also write at length about robert redfield, the head of the

centers for disease control, who's back in the news right now because he is urging americans to wear a mask, he is urging caution about a vaccine. the president is contradicting him. take us to the essence of that relationship. >> redeld heads the overall c.d.c., which is responsible for tracking down the cause of some sort of health crisis. he realized that this could be some sort of pandemic. f t, he told associates -- and this is the key -- he said, this is not going to be something that goesay or is dealt with in six months or a year, it is going to be a two- or three-year fight. we now realize that that's exactly the situation, andth 's exactly what president trump knew and did not tells. >> woodruff: and is continuing to push back against even today.

bob woodward, the united states has just 4% of the world's population, and, yet, the united states has almost a quarter of all the covid cases in the world. we have by far more deaths than any other count on the planet et, and, yet, in essence, he's done a masterful job ofou managing it. doese believe t has he convinced himself of that? or does the truth matter? >> well, i'm not sureru the tth matters, and i pushed him on this just as much as you possibly can, and he actually said -- in public, he said there are things said that ar just great, and i let him have his say beause he deserves that, but i also press him on these issues, particularly the virus. 195,000 people have died from this. >>ruff: right. on his watch.

>> woodruff: so much to ask you ab- ab-about, so many revelations and conversations.n at te director of national intelligence dan coates said he continued harbor this bef that it continued to grow that he believes somehow thatf, but russia's vladimir putihad something on the president. is that something that is still an open question, in your mind? >> well, it was in dan co mind. he had access to l the deep cover human sources, all the communications, intercepts, absolutely everything on this,so and heed through it meticulously with his aids, because he felt, because of the way the president responds to putin, that it looked like putin had something on trump. coatesid notd inidence or proof of this, but he continued

to harbor the absolute conviction that putin did have something on trump. >> woodruff: you also have, you ote jam mattis as saying the president doesn't know the difference between the truth an. a you have dan coas, again former director of national intelligence, saying the president was played skifflely by people lie -- stillfully by people like president putin and china's president xi jinping because they lied to him. you quote rex tillerson saying he's unstable. why do you think they won't say? it themsel >> well, i had the luxu of ten months to work on this, ask trump all kinds of questions, ask other people. i have sources in the white house, the c.i.a., the pentagon, the state department who will tell me what's going on, and alh of quotations from these

officials are reported in depth and i am confident are absolutely true.th >> woodruff: a issue that is huge before the american people this year, bob woodward, of course, after the death of george floyd, is the reckoning of a race. and you did talk to the president several points about his view of race. you asked him if he believed there's sytematic m in this country. he said there's less than in mo other countries, than in many other countries. what dead you coisnclude about view whent it comes to racism? >> well, i pushed him on that and i said what abo thi country? and he acknowledged and said, s, there is, more or less, i'm sorry to say there is. but, more importani flat-out asked him, i said, look, you are the son of white privilege.

my father was a judge illinois, a lawyer, and ii know -d this white privilege. and i asked trump, i said, so,, in a sen're ling in ais cave, we'rlated, and do you understand, mr. president, the pain and anger thatirmingham ble feel? and this tape has been released in which the president mocks mes ntially says, wow, you really drank the kool-aid, bob. i don't feel that way at all. so he rejects just openly this idea thatlack people can feel this paisa and id to the president, that's your job, you've got to understand people. you've got to get in other pele's shoes. and he w saiell, he likes to be in his own shoes.

and this is part of the calamit of thisheresidency, that leader won't listen, the leader will not organize. i literally said to him, you need a manhattan project, like franklin roosevelt launched during world war ii to build the atomic bomb. and where's the mnhattan project? where's full mobilization? and he failed to do that, and 's one of the saddest, mostte disturbing ch in american history, as best i can tell. >> woodruff: do you think hes caout the american people? >> wel i think he's n heartless. i think he's driven toward reelection, and -- no, i'm not going to -- i'm not -- i don't

know his motive, but hois mve is clearly reelection. >> woodruff: la question. you mentioned law and order. as you know, there are democrats, there are conservative republicans, never-trumper reblicans, who concerned that this president has no respect for norms, for the rule of law, and they are seriously worried he will not accept the results of the ection, that he may do anything, they don't know what he would do in the last six ection in orderl to win. do you have that same -- >> well, i asked him about that and he said he wouldn't comment. but i think is a mistake to kind of look and say, oh, well, he's broken norms, he's 'ifferent. of course hes different, he was elected to be different we shouldn't be surprised at that at all, and my judgment in

e end that he's the wrong man for the job is not a political dgment at all, it's based and the utter sadness i feel i doing this reporting and spending all this time with hi and the key peop in the administration that he has failed, and the failure, it doesn't end. we are on a moving train wit vh thrus and all the people who know the most about it say, in the coming ths, it's going to converge with the flu, and we are going to have a hail storm in aur hricane, all at once. >> woodruff: bob woodward, thank you. the book is "rage." we appreciate it.

>> woodruff: secretary of state mike pompeo left this morning for south america to consult seth allies and press the against the maduro government of venezuela, which has ruled over economic and societal collapse. and that was before covid-19. special correspondent marcia biggs went to venezeula earlier this year for us, and has this update on country in crisis, now stricken with the pandemic. >> reporter:his ishat it osoked like in venezuela's publictals before the pandemic. overrun: a shortage of doctors and drugs, no electricity or even running water. we were there just seven months ago, filng with hidden cameras to document a public health care system coming apart at the seams. but that was before covid-19.or how much has it gotten in the last six months? >> i mean, it's the worst case scenario. i mean, we are in the perfect

storm. we came from a very deep health crisis. and now we're in the mid that with epidemic, which is i mean, it's a worldwide epidemic. doctors are dyg. >> reporter: dr. julio castro is an advisor to venezuela's opposition-led national assembly and, because of his potion, was willing to talk to us. >> actually, right now the occupancy of i.c.u. in venezuela is close to 50%, but with those 50%, the i.c.u. are totally collapsed because they don't have medical supplies. >> reporter: we spoke with a 27 year old medical resident, who we'll call maria, she works in one of caracas' public hospitals and is too scared to show her face. >> ( translated ): patients die every day. the problem is that the patients arrive in such bad conditions that we can't even do the tests. after my last three shifts ended, i started to cry because of what i couldn't do, becau of how limited i was, because i

wasn't able to help. >>re than we can handle. eporter: she says she ars retaliation in a country whereit ism of the government's handling of the pandemic isre grounds for . venezuela has been on a strict lockdown since march. banks are closed, schools and shops are empty, and travel around the capital caracas requires military permission. a recent report by human rights watch tails the use of covid 19 by the maduro regime as an s cuse to crack down on dissenting voice lawyers, journalists, and healthcare workers. this video shows people being forced into hard labor for not wearing masks, and children forced to do pushups for bng out in the streets. >> actually, the rege has been telling to the people that they are in control of the pandemic, which is not true. r

orter: the maduro regime claims to have performed almost two million covid tests, but it's unclear whether that number refers to the rapid test othe more reliable p.c.r. test, which is performed with a nasal swab. the government's figures put the country's total coronavirus cases at over 60,000, with nearly 500 dead. there is no independent tally numbers are much higher.th >> we have just one lab for the whole untry to do the p.c.r. >> reporter: just one lab for the entire country?. >> just one lab. >> reporter: venezuela is roughly twice the size of rnia, so getting anythin anywhere, requires gasoline, which is in short supply, thanks to decades long mie anagement of uny's oil industry, as

well as u.s. sanctions. atop the world's largest oil reserve, peoplwait in line for hours to fill their e nks. and for rst time, gas, which has always been free, is no longer completely subsidized, adding enormous pressure to a struggling economy, where families go through the trash to feed their children. >> reporter: it was conditions ke those that forced five million people to flee in thest laeveral years. but w, the country is facing new crisis: reverse migration in the middle of a pandemic. 27 year old kevin delgado, is one of tens of thousands of venezuelans who have been forced to return home he was living in neighring colombia when the pandemic hit and the warehouse heorked in closed down. he says he was out of work for 22 days when he was suddenly evicd. with no other options,e made the painful decision to head back to venezuela. he and three other friends set

out, at first hitchhiking. this is some of his cell phone video. then three days wathrough the paramo, an unforgiving mountainous region thatfr stretche the tip of the andes in peru all the way up to venezuela. >> ( translated ): psychologicay it was difficult because people have talked about the paramo, the cold, people have died from hypothe >> reporter: by the time they arrived at the venezuelan border, there were 500 returnees waiting. they were given rapid covid tests and then sent to inarantine for 12 days at an abandoned school village where they were not welcome. >> ( translated ): it took hours because people were ocking the streets and wouldn't let us through, they were saying "they are contaminated, they are going to get us sic" >> reporter: maduro has consistently called out returnees for bringing the viru. into venezue in this video he refers to them as bioterrorists. others have referred to them as fascists, traitors for leaving to seek a better life outside.

>> ( translated ): in colombia otey took care of us, but as soon as weo the venezuelan side, they didn't even give us water. we only had electricity four or five hours day. they put 74 of us in one room, practically on top of each other. i shared my mattress with another pers. i knew i was healthy, and the first thing i thought was"g" they're go put me with five hundred people? i didn't know if they were sick. that was what made me panic. >> reporter: kevin says he's grateful it wasn't w claims of no food or water and mistreatment have been rampant, not to mention the fear of infection. this video surfaced of an elderly man begging for his life after being detained for five days in a tiny room with no heat broken chairs.o sleep, only "please help us, get us out of here," he cries, "we are going to die he." >> and they stay there maybe for five week. three weeks four week

and they get infectein those in those in those places. the test that they are doing the people do not have food, do not have water, do not have electricity, they have to deal with a military guy. so the situation there is very concern in terms of human rights. >> reporter: you're saying that they're held there under difficult circumstances and squalid conditions. and then the testing isn't even accurate. >> yeah. >> reporter: but dr. ctro did get an accure test: after months on the frontlines, he tested positive for the virus in late august. and is now recovering at home.fo the nes on the virus comes as the country remains mired in political stalemate. maduro clings to power despite the recognition by the u.s. and dozens of other countries of opposition leader juan guaido as the rightful president. we were there seven months ago i n january when national guard troopsarred guaido from entering parliament and pro- government vigilantes attacked his car.

new parliamentary eltions are slated for december, but opposition members have pledged n. boycott what they say will be a rigged electio in the meantime, the venuelan people suffer. fikevilly arrived home and is living with eight other familyembers in this abandoned building. he's helping his mother, selling meat and cheese to their neighbors. they live day to day, but he sayshere is no point in tryi to save. hyperinflation means anything put away today could be worth nothing tomorrow. >> ( translated ): they buy a little bit everyday, whatever is leftover, we eat. i not something that's going to make us any money, but this is what is left for us. >> reporter: all that is left for a country where crisis has become a way of life. for the pbs newshour, i'm marcia biggs.

>> woodruff: a new memorial will be dedicated in washington, d.c. this evening to president dwight d. eisenhower who servet as thepresident, and the supreme commander of the allied expeditionary force in eure ring world war ii. as jeffrey brown reports, the four-acre al comes to ovuition after 20 years, internal consy over its design, and at a time whenll memorials geneare being re-examined. the story is part of our arts and culture coverageas. brown: it's a sprawling tribute to the man known as" ike": republican pre53dent from 19o 1961, and five-star general who plned and executed the world war ii invasion of normandy. the memorial is situated in a prime but crowded spot within sight of the nation's capitol, across the street fromhe smithsonian institution's air and space museum and national

museum of the american indian, directly in front of the u.s. department of education. the solution chosen to set it off from that 1961 box-style building: a steel tapestry, representing an stract view of the normandy cliffs, especially vivid by night. it's based on a drawing by the man who designed the memorial: famed architect frank gehry. >> brown: gehry, now 91, is renowned for buildings such as the guggenheim museum in bilbao, spain, walt disney hall in los angeles, the new world center in miami beach. but he had never designed a memorial nor had he designed any structure in washington, d.c. >> my first reaction was, why would i want to go to washington and get involved with all of that? once i did that, i realized how manage because it affic. to it had three office buildings. front of them easiomething in >> brown: but gehry realized he

could play to that environment-- nestling a monument to eisenhower atid government es that ike as president was responsible for helping bring abt: the department of education, the federal aviation administration andhais now known as the health and human services administration. >> so th that became powerful to consider that here he was being placed in the milieu of his accomplishments, represented by these three office buildings on the way to the capitol. >> brown: but, critics, including many in the eisenhower family itself, were no supportive of the early architectural style, wanting more traditional approach to what gehry had in mind. he says they were. >> trying to derail a modernist view of memorial in washington. they thought it should be historicist and classical.to i trieespect classical, actually. the columns are litera or to be relative to greek

but they are a symbol of government buildings. and so i use them to hold the mopestry. >> brown: gehry'fications won over the family, including grandson david eisenhower, an historian who teaches at the university of pennsylvania, he served on the memorial commission. f >> my id it-- memorials ated to convey something in particular-- is wight eisenhower was part of a great collective effort in t0s. and that is america's effort in world war ii. and he was very much a part of that. and he was also typil of the american who had this experience and joined in this great enterprise. his greatest speech, believe, was probably at the guildhall on june 12th, 1945, where he was where he was accepting the freedom of london: >> i come from the heart of americ >> brown: the memorial includes a statue of the "boy from abilene," by sculptor sergey eylanbekov.

it was those roots that grabbed gehry as well. >> that was powerful for me. and i went to abilene and saw where he was buried and saw the community he lived in and saw the bedroom he lived in th his other two brothers. wasn't very big and ver modest. everything was super, super modest. and it was jt a lot of things i believed in.gt >> brown: wash is a city of monuments and memorials, including: washington, jefferson, lincoln. re recently the vietnam memorial opened in the '80s,r. f.n the early '90s, world war ii in the 2000s and the martin in 2011. c memorial and the builditinues: a memorial to native american the shadow of the capitol and a world war i memorial is about to be completed not far away. but the eisenhower memorial also orens at a very tense time the nation, with a very

different kind of republican president, and a focus on the history that statues and memorials purporto honor. >> we're in a completely started this memorhan when we we need to have a pause. weeed to take a moment to think about it. >> brown: brown university visiting professor and historian renee ater has studied and written on the role of monuments and "memorialization." >> that's important that he is acknowledged. but we also know we have limited space this city for monument building and we need to think about who gets to be in those spaces as we proceed. the monumental sculpture certainly plays into that idea of the great man sculpture. as we start to think about future memorialization efforts, we need to actually more broadly include communities in that discussion about who gets to be, in public spho gets to be represented, and the types of artists that are going to do the >> brown: i asked david eisenhower about these broader and urgent questions of history and memory. iz my philosophy is, is that memoation is something

that revea us at any given me. and so i think memorialization is a process that is renewed. memorial, i think you are investing or gambling in a sense sson the future, that the e that a memorial conveys will have a kind of timeless quality to i >> brown: the opening of this new memorial, then, offers another chance to consider the nation's larger legacy. for the pbs newshour, i'm jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: speaking at the white house conference on american history, esident trump announced that he would be signing an executive order to create the "1776 commission," which he said would promote a "patriotic education." he also blasted efforts to reexamine american history with

a deeper emphasis on slavery and cism. >> by viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want to impose new segregation, and we must not allow that to happen. critical race theory, the 1619 project and the crusade against american history is toxicpr aganda, ideological poison, d,that if not remoill wssolve the civic bonds that tie us togethel destroy our country. >> woodruff: our white house correspondent yamiche alcindor joins me now to expl so, hello, yamiche. race, as we know has been mp a charged topic in this country for so much of this year. this isn't theirst time the president has addressed race. give us a little more context about what was behind what the president was saying today.

>> well, judy, as you noted, race has been a topic of conversation in this country for a long time, but especially this year. president trump as the 2020 election near as made race a core part of his strategies. supporters of the president say he's made it something of bringing together americans but also not calling americaracist. today what we heard from the president was more of him etacking americans that really looking at this cotry and saying we need o really understand the legacy of slavery inst more roay. the president, in particular, was making a case withoutce evidhat there is a sort of historical movement afoot tdio ort american history and indoctrinate american children and the next generation ofam icans with a liberal ideal he said that a lot of these. people that he believes are out there are really using america's schools to push forward this

idea that america is flawed and thatouldn't respect our founders and respect historical offigures. thatcourse, is inaccurate. 1619 projects.ecifically the this is, of course, a pulitzerer pre winning project founded and created by nicole hannah jones. she is someone w wants to look at america and say there are founders in our country that we need to understand in context,in ng out people like thomas jefferson and george washington, people who are american hees but who also owned slaves. as part of the 1619 prject, what we saw was a robust telling of all the different ways that slavery continues to touch our daily livesnd, of course, the idedea there were hunand thousands of americans -- ofk blericans kidnapped from the content of africa and brought to the united states and forced to work, raped and killed and pillaged, in order for erica to enrich itself and white americans to benefit from that. the president was making the case this needs to change.

he said he's going to be signine an etive order, a national commission on patriotic education. 's not clear wh that meant. i have been talking to white house sources who says thet presidres about this, but essentially the 1619 project is gog into american schools and is based on facts, judy, not on exploitation or falsehoods. >> woodruff: so, yamiche, th president also, today, as he has before, criticized the protests for racial justice around the country. message was there. at the >> well, tesident was saying that this historical movement to distort amican ideals, which, again, there's no evidence of this movement, that it led to the protests we've seen all over this country. what i know as someone w covered the protest is they'r taking to streets because they want to see african-americans treated more fairly. attorney general bill barr at

one point suggested charging protesters with sedition which is really a way to look tament as unlawful and that has really ared a lot of people, frankly, and esee him as politicizing inis. the president cos to talk about protesters as if they'reme ic territories and attorney general bill barr has so followed suit. i should not it's in tandem with this campaign of the president. with the attorney al,ction yamiche, today -- or just s yesterday,uld say, he was speaking about the stay-at-home orders iconnection with the pandemic, with covid, t he tied it to race. let's listen. >> putting a national lockdown, stay-at-me orderis like house arrest. it's -- you know, other thanw slavery, which a different kind of restraint, thiis the greatest intrusion on civil liberties in american history.

>> woodruff: so, yamiche, how is this being read? >> well, it's en read as tone deaf and ridiculous.al attorney genill barr saying that stay-at-home orders which are about people voluntarily staying home to stay safe amid a pandemic is, ofhe course, not same thing at all as slavery, an idea that e people wexploited and kidnapped and raped and killed as part of sery. jim clueburn, the second or third-ranking house democrat, house democrat whip said this was tone deaf and god awful. the other thing to note is thist connects with he people say is the unjust politicizing of the department of justice. attorney general bill barr was tting a lot of backlash for equating rank and file prosecutors with pre-schoolers saying they should not be in charge ultimately of making a lot of the decisions, in particular cases, he's really getting pushback on that.

and there are people saying this is alarming attorney general bill barr is tang the side of president trump too much and treating the department of justice as if they're personalrn ats for the president. of course, attorney general bill barr has been pushing back onot that, but af critics are saying this is just not right. >> woodruff: well, a l to follow today on the subject, yamiche alcindor. thank you so much for brtonging us uppeed this evening. we thank you. separately othe "newshour" online right now, early on in the pandemic, >> wdruff: on the newshour online right now, early on in the pandemic, pediatricians could see another crisis looming: outbreaks of childhood diseases returning as families withdrew from medical care. we look at the danger of kids missing their regularl scheduled vaccines on our web site, pbs.org/newshour. d that's the newshour fo tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow evening. for all of us at the p newshour, thank you, please stay safe, and we'll see you soon. f

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hello, everyone,me and welco to "amanpour & co." here is what's coming up. theatre. i didn't downplay it. dent reagan might have said, there you go again, as t presidenmp contradicts himself again. i ask al franken about sorting political fact from fiction. > plus -- >> we had a year where people began talking about this and i think to some extent this ended up being washington's fight to lose.