captiong sponsored byy newshour productions, llc >> woodruff: good evening, i'm judy woodruff. on the newshour tonight, a critical vote under increasing scrutiny. we examine the president's claims about mail in ballots and : at we need to know. then, underwaterw the storm devastating floodsoss the southeast. and, cost of a vaccine-- we digi into the econocs behind the push to combat covid-19.he >> should be no reason that pharma companies should be charge whatever they want. >> woodruff: all that and moreig on tonht's pbs newshour. >> major funding for the pbs

newsur has been provided by: >> when the world gets complicated, a lot goes through your mind. with fidelity wealthanagement, a dedicated advisor can tailor advice and recommendations to your life. that's fidelity wealth management. >> the kendeda fund. committed to advancing restorative justice andan gful work through investments in transformative leaders and ideas. more at kendedafund.org. >> carnegie corporation of new york. supporting innovations in ucation, democratic engagement, and the advancement of international peace and security.

at carnegie.org. >> and with the ongoing support of these instituinons: anviduals. >> this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. ank you. >> woodruff: with about six weeks until election day, how americans will vote has on grown more contentious. the security of elections an mail in ballots was once again at the top of mind for many officials in washington toda our william brangham begins our coverage. >> brangham: theay started

with another inaccurate tweet from president trump about mail- in voting. the president has repeatedly made false statements about who is being sent mail-in ballots, and what mail-in voting could mean for the eleion. today, he assert falsely that" the nov 3rd election result may never be accurately determined"t on col hill today, f.b.i. director christopher wray told congress that pren election meddling is coming from russia. the russians aren't targeting election infrastructure, wray said, but stirring up division.r >>inly have seen very active very active efforts by 20e russians to influence our election in 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 divisiveness and discord and, and i think the intelligence community has asseed this to

primarily denigrate vice president biden. >> brangham: wray's testimony comes a week after a deptment of homeland security whistleblower alleged that he was told to tamp downce intelligelating to russian interference. but last night, president trump downplayed the risk of foreign influence, instead saying, again, with no evidence behind his stement, that democratic governors mailing out ballots would be the gravest threat come november. >> our biggest threat to this electi is governors from opposing parties, controlling ballots, millions of ballots. to me, that's a much bigger threat than foreign countries because much of the stuff coming out about foreign countries turned out to be untrue. >> brangham: today in an op-ed in the "neyork times," president trump's former hand- intelligence, dan coats, warned of the stakes, writing: "the most urgent task american leaders face is to ensure that the election's results are accepted as legitimate.l

electogitimacy is the essential linchpin of our entire political culture."nt coats n to offer a tetential solution, calling on congress to crea "bipartisan and nonpartisan commission to oversee the election." d said the key goal shoulbe reassuring the american people that their votes will counws for the pbs ur, i'm william brangham. >> woodruff: there were two court rulings today, bearing on all of this. a federal judge inashington state issued a nationwideju tion against postal service changes that have slowed mail service. he ruled voters could be disenfranchised. and the pennsylvania supreme court ordered that deadlines f ndmail-in voting be eased, that more ballot collection sites be set up. dr

>> wf: now, our second major story-- the aftermath of the storm moved east and kept dumping rain today. its wake, heavyloodin along the gulf coast kept rerescus busy, while others began the clean-up. john yang has our report. >> it's been mighty bad and 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 huicaney. sa alabama governor kay ivey called for patience as her stat recovers. >> y'all, i know it's comfortable and downright scary to be sitting in the darkness of your home without any light. but please be patient. >> yang: alabama has seen at least one fatality. the mayor of orange beach said one person died there and another is missing, as the small coastal city grapples with continued floods. overnight, the storm weakened from a category 2 hurricane to a

tropical depression, but heavy rains continue to pound gulf coast communities. like in pensacola, florida, where bloated waters reduced boat docks to driftwood. in perdido key, residents like this business owner are picking up the pieces of buildings, destroyed by sally's 100-mile- plus winds. those winds also toppled themo spire at thile, alabama church. the trail of dtruction has some coastal residents reflecting on the place they call home. rocky bond of pascagoula mississippi calls his boat onin the siriver a piece of esradise, but a risky one. >> the water cp, and it takes the wood and the beams, and it lifts the whole thing up, and it pulls the pilings out of the ground. sothis hurricane-- living this area and enjoying this kind of paradise, there's a price to loy. >> yang: sally'space as it moves north is also putting swaths of the south east underh fld coastal flood warnings. today, thick rain clouds hovered over downtown atlantrr as sally baed through georgia with up

to two inches of rainfall. for the pbs newshour, i'm john yang. >> woodruff: in the day's other news, new unemployment claims fell to 860,000 last week, but layoffs from the pandemic remained at historic highs. meanwhile, airline executive were at the white house, warning they may have to cut 40,000 jobs next month, unless bill.ess can pass a new relief the world health organization warned today against 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. meanwhile, a former homeland security aide to vice president pence, olivia troye, said she's

voting for joe biden because mr. trump has put re-election ahead of saving human lives. we'lrn to pandemic politics, after the news summary. w york city has again postponed in-person schooling for more than one million students. mayor bill deblasio announced m today tht elementary school students will return to the classroom on september 29th. middle and high schoolers will start ocber 1st. deblasio said schools need more time. >> we have to have social y,stancing throughout schools, cleaning constanace coverings on sdents and adults alike, a host of measures that had to bput in place, all system-wide. we're continuing to deepen those efforts because we have to meetd that gold stanor the good of all in our school community. >> woodruff: the city's scols re still wrestling with shortages of staff and supplies. smoke ov parts of the fire- ravaged west coast cleared some

today, for the first time in days. still, air quality over airtland, oregon and other cities rd at hazardous levels. fire crews hope that scattered rain expected this weekend will help douse more of the fires, and dissipate the smoke. the head of the f.b.i. says agents are focused on violent extremism, not ideology, in nationwide protests over racia injustice. director christopher wray testified at a house hearing today. it followed reports that federal crackdown on violence than 300 arrests.as netted more and, on wall street, stocks gave ground obon concerns the economy, and doubts thatil congresspass more pandemic aid. the dow jones indust 1al average lo points to close at 27,902.14 the nasdaq felpoints, and, the s&p 500 slipped 28. still to come on the newshour:

the economics ber nd the race covid vaccine. bob woodward on his explosivee new book on thesident. and much more. >> woodruff: the president is again contradicting some topth hefficials about the asming of a vaccine and effectiveness of. yesterday, c.d.c. director doctor robert redfield told a senate committee he believed a vaccine would not be widely available to most americans before the middle of next year. people at higher risk or medical workers or first responders are likely to get it sooner but he said greater mask use was the most essential way to

protect americans. i may even go so far as to say this facemask is guaranteed to protect me against covid than when i take a covid vaccineth becausimmunogenicity may he 70% and if i don't get an immune response,accine won't protect me this face mask wl. >> woodruff: hours later, the president rejectedd hat redfield her scientists have said. he insisted 100 million doses of a vaccine would be widely distbuted befo the end of this year. but today, the head of moderna, a vaccine manufacturer, said his company would likelyot distribute its vaccine widely until the second half of next year. president trump also downplayed the use of masks once again and disputed redfield. >> i think he made a mistake when he said that, it's just incorrect information. i mean i think there's a lot of problems with masks. no, vaccine is much more

effective than the masks, but no the mask is not as important as the vaccine that masks perhaps helps. >> woodruff: all of this com as the c.d.c. announced it expects to distribute vaccines to the public no cost to the patient. but there are significant questions and criticisms about what the government's going to pay for vaccines overall withon taxpayerey and whether companies should be able to profit from it. economics correspondent paul solman dives into the part of e.e story for our series, "making sens" >> reporr: a newsreel from 1955, on the polio vaccine. >> an historic victory over a dread disease. >> reporter: the vaccine's literally gave it s salk, >> who owns the patent on this vaccine? >> the people i would sa there is no patent. could you patent the sun? >> the pandemic is crisis. >> reporter: 65 years later, pope francis thinks the covid-19 vaccine should follow the polio

precedent. >> ( translated ): it would be a scandal if our economic system, supported by public funds, contributes only to companies instead of theommon good. >> reporter: no question public funds are driving the huge covid vaccine effort. >> it's called operation warp speed. that means big and it means st. >> reporter: but looming over operation warp speed is a ge question: how much is the public, through the government, paying pvate companies? >> there is no reason that private pharmaceutal companies should be profiteering off of a pandemic.re >> reporter: oy okolo is the chief health policy aide for illinois democrat jan schakowski. >> yes or no, will you sell your vacce at cost. so that we can verify you aren't ki a profit. >> reporter: merck's vaccine has received $38 million in government funding. jue gerberding is executiv vice president. >> no, we will not be sellingos vaccine at although it's very premature for us since

we're a long way from really understanding thwhcost basis of e we'll end up. >> so dr. hoge, yes or no? reporter: stephen hoge is c.e.o. of moderna, which by some measures has gotten nearly $1.5 billion in federal funding-- all the money it's putnto the thvaccine-- and will get a billion and a half if it succeeds. >> we will not sell it at cost, no ma'. >> reporter: which is why health policy wonks like okolo are up in arms. >> there should be no reason that pharma companies should be having exclusive licenses to charge whatever they want, to control distribution of the drugs, to control the price and access not only in the united statesbut across the world. >> reporter: charge whatever they want to, a u.s. government desperate for a vaccine,ny vaccine, running a tab that we taxpayers will ultimately pick up. >> i have an incurable blood cancer called multiple myeloma. >> reporter: longtime public health advocate david mitchell is founder of patients for affordable drugs. >> my doors have me on a four-

drug combination that carries a list price of $900,00 a year. so i care deeply about vaccines that will be affordable because if you have a blood cancer a if you're taking chemotherapy, both of which i am, then the 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 subsidized, is the government, and therefore taxpayers, really going to have to pay again? we've pumped $12 billion tot these drug companies for operation warp speed. we are effectively underwriting r&d, clinical trials, standing up production capability and even producing, paying to produce the drugs. >> reporte just consider moderna's contract: three billion dollars to immunize 50 million americs. so not to personalize this too much, but i have paid n dollars for every member of my

family already to develop the moderna vacce. and so has every other american. >> that's correct. but only about one in si amicans would get those initial doses. >> reporter: peter maybarduke oa the ralpr non-profit, public citizen. how much is it going to cost for every american to get immunized? >> it'd be about ten billiar dototal u.s. government investment. the u.s. government has options to purchase hundreds of millions of more doses from moderna. up to 250 million people. >> reporter: so that's something like $40 from the u.s. government to moderna for every doesn't sound so bad.unized. >> buthat's not really the point here.nm the u.s. govt appears to co-own this vaccine. it can insist on reasonable pricg and conditions. and if you look at comparable vaccines, astrazeneca willo chargere than eigh dollars per person. the price really could be quite a bit lower. >> reporter: but who knows for how long these price hold

when the pandemic ends, and we might still need an annual covid shot that we might have to pay for out of pocke >> we are really over a barrel if these kind of guarantees aren't written into the initial contracts. >> reporter: and thus the simple question, says health journalist dr. elisabeth rosenthal: >> why are we paying or something thathe government itself largely developed? government institutis created the platforms for many of these new really innovative ccines. and we are now paying through department program to ramp up production, manufacturing, distribution. so haven't we paid already? >> reporter: and as a result, in the case of moderna, enricng its private investors by public investment that has literally tripled the company's stock value? okay, sure; drug companies will profit. but-- and this is where the argument changes direction-- why is that a problem? >> you want vaccines to be somewhat profitable because youe want manac to be incented to make them.

>> reporter: stock analyst evane siegerman putsime-honored case for profits succinctly. >> it is important that they are allowed to make some sort of a profit so that they will contue to invest in research and development in manufacturing. and of course, distribution.>> e live and benefit from medical cures. >> reporter: look, the stakes are life-and-death, says adam mossoff, a frestmarket enthust george mason university. the companies need profits, he 'rys. >> if thgoing to continue doing more r&d into new drugs have made modern life ants that veritable miracle by any historical standards. i mean, what were just death sentences 10, 20 years ago, cancer, dies, hepatitis are now manageable day to day tnditions thanks to the types investments a thousands, millions of labor hours put in by researchers and scientists ithe biopharmaceutical industry. >> reporter: but our skeptics don't buy the profit motive story. >> some of the money we spend is plowed back into development, and that's hugely useful.

but also, you know, we should look at what pharmaceutical companies are spending for marketing, for promotion. >> reporter: which, for the ten largest u.s. based prescription drug companies, is actually almost as much as r&d spending. add in profits and it's far more. >> i joke that it used to be that a, you know, nobel prize was motivation enough. but, all of our drug makers are now publicly traded mostly or privately owned for-profit companies. so that's where we are. >> reporter: but to health economist katherine baicker, where we are with regard to iccovid vaccine g is okay, even with the huge government subsidies. >> i don't think we can count on 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.

>> you want people to be encouraged to make vaccines. if you have more than , e manufacture price is likely to go down. >> reporter: remember, says baicker... >> these vaccines are worth trillions of dollars to the world. there's so much value to be created that there'soom for there to be economic gain the people who invested in the medine, whether that's priva sector or public, as well as much greater benefits tohe public in the form of improved health and resumed economic activity. >> reporter: as long as people take it, and it doesn't become prohibitively expensive down the line. for the pbs newshour solman. >> woodruff: we turn now to the political fallout facing president trump, amid new reporting from veteran joenalist bob woodward of " washington post."

woodward'sewest book, "rage" features 18 on-the-record interviews and recordings ofpr ident trump, ranging from his handling of the coronavirus to racial injustice.wa bob wo joins me now. and, bob woodwar congratulations on this book. this is a president about whom so much has been written. with him do you think adds the most to our understanding of who donald trump is? >>ell, it is a look into his mind. i asked him, what's the job of the president? he said, to protect the people. he failein that, and he faid to tell the truth,. tragical >> woodruff: so these dire warnings that were given to him in january, he knew this. you cite tony fauci saying he had a minus number tention span. you also write enat lgth about robert redfield, the head of th centers for disease control, who's back in the news right noe

use he is urging americans to wear a mask, he isurging caution about a vaccine. the president is contradicting him. relationship.e essence of that >> redfield heads the overallwh c.d.c.h is responsible r tracking down the cause of some sort of health crisis. he realiz that this co be some sort of pandemic. in fac he told associates -- and this is the key -- he said, this is not going to be something that goes away or is dealt with in six moths or ag year, it is goto be a two- or three-year fig nht. w reale that that's exactly the situation, and that's exactly what president trump knew and did not tell us. >> woodruff: and is continuing to push back against even toay.

bob woodward, the united states s just 4% of the world's population, and, yet, the united statf has almost a quarter all the covid cases in the world. we hby far more deaths than any other country on the planet d, yet, in essence, president trump is telling you he's done a masterful job of managing it. does he believe that? has he vinced himself of that? or does the truth matter? >> well, i'm not sure the truth matters, and i pushed him on this just asuch as yo possibly can, and he actually said -- in public, heaid there are things iaid that are just great, and i let him have his say because heeserves that, but i also press him on these issues, particularly the v 195,000 people have died from this. >> woodruff: right. on his watch. >> woouff: so much to ask

you ab ab-- about, so many revelations and conversations. at then the director of national intelligence dan coates said he that it continued to grow thatf he could never find proof, but he believes somehow that russia's vladimir putin had something on the president. is that something that is still an open question, in your mind? >> well, it was in dan coats' mind. heccess to all the deep cover human sources, all the communications, intercepts, absoluly everything on this, and he sortedthrough it meticulously with his aids, way the president responds to putin, that it looked like putin had something on trump. coates did not find evidence oor of this, but he continued to harbor he absolute

conviction that putin did have something on trump. >> woodruff: you also have, you quote james mattis as saying the president doesn't know the difference bween the truth and a lie. you have dan coates,ai former director of national intelligence, saying the president was played skifflely by people like -- stillfully by people like president putin and china's presid jinping because they lied to him. you quote x tillerson saying table.ns why do you think they won't s it themselves? >> well, i hf d the luxuryn months to work on this, ask trump all kindsf 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 all of the quotations from these officials are reported in depth

ani am confident are absolutely true. >> woodruff: another issue that is ge bore the american people this year, bob woodward, of course, afterhe deh of george floyd, is the reckoning of a race. and you did talk to the l points about his view of race. you asked him if he believed there's systematic racism in is country. he said there's less than in m other countriesthan in many other countries. what dead you conclude about his view whent it ces to racism? >> well, i pushed him on that and i said what about this country? and he acknowledd and said, yes, there is, more or less, i'm sorry to say there is. but, more importantly, i flat-out asked him, i said, look, you are the son of white privilege. father was a judge in

illinois, a lawyer, and i know -- i had this white privilege. and i asked trump, i said, so, in a sense, we're living in a cave, we're isolated, and do you understand, mrpresident,he pain and aer that birmingham ble feel? and this tape has been released in which the president mocks me, essentially says, wow, you really drank the kool-aid, bob. i don't feel that way at all. so he rejects just openly this idea that black people can fee this pan. and i said to the president, that's your job, you've got to understand pple. you've got to get in others. people's sh and he said, well, he likes to be in his own shoes. and this is parof the calamity

of this presidency, that the leader won't listen, the leaderi not organize. i literally said to him, you need a manhattan project, like franklin roosevelt launcd during world war ii to build the atic bomb. and here's the manhattan project? where's full mobilizatn? and he failed to do that, and it's one of the saddest, most disturbing chapters inamerican history, as best i can tell. >> woruff: do you think he cares about the american people? >> well, i think he's not heartless. i think he's driven toward reelection, and- no, i'm not -- i don't- i'm not know his motive, but his motive

is clearly reelection. >> woodruff: last question. you mentioned law and order. as you know, there are mocrats, there are conservative republicans, trumper republicans, wh are now saying they are concerned that this president has respect fo norms, for the rule of law, and they are seriously worried he will not accept the resus of the election, that he may do anything, they don't know what he would do in the lassix weeks of this election in order to win. do you have that same -- >> well, i asked him about that and he said he wouldn't comment. t i think it's a mistake to kind of look and say, , well, he's broken norms, he's different. of course he's different, he was elected to be different. we shouldn't s beprised at that at all, andmy judgment in the end that he's the wrong man

for the job is not a litical judgment at all, it's based observeovrwhelming evidence and the utter sdness i feel n doing this reporting and spending all this time with him and the key people in the ministration that he ha failed, and the failure, it doesn't end. we are on a moving train with this virus and all the people who know the most about it say, in the coming months, it's going to converge with the flu, and we are going to have a hail storm in a hurricane, all at once. >> woodruff: bob woodward, thank you. ge."book is "ra we appreciate it.

>> woodruff: secretary of statei pompeo left this morning for south america to consult with allies and press the casee against duro government of venezuela, which has ruled over economic and societ collapse. and that was before covid-19. special correspondenia biggs went to venezeula earlier this year for us, and has this update on couny in crisis, now strick with the pandemic. >> reporter: this is what it looked likin venezuela's public hospitals before the pandemic. overrun: a srtage of doctors and drugs, no electricity or even running water. we were there just seven mths ago, filming with hidden cameras to documt a public health care system coming apart at the seams. but that was before covid-19. how much worse has it gotten in the last six months? >> i mean, it's the worst case scen i mean, we are in the perfect storm. we came from a very deep health

crisis. and now we're in the middle of that with epidemic, which is i memi, it's a worldwide epide doctors are dying. >> reporter: dr. julio castro is an advisor to venezuela's opposition-led national assembly and, because of his position, was willing to talk to us. >> actually, right now the occupancy of i.c.u. in venezuela close to 50%, but with those se%, the i.c.u. are totally collbecause they don't have m>>ical supplies. eporter: we spoke with a 27 year old medical resident, who, we'll call mare works in one of caracas' public hospitals face.s too scared to show her >> ( translated ): patients die every day. pathe problem is that the ents arrive in such bad conditions that we can't even do the tests. aftemy last three shifts ended, i started to cry because of what i couldn't do, because of how limited i was, because ih wasn't able p.

the demand is too high, it's more than we can handle. >> reporter: she says she fears retaliation in a country w criticism of the government's handling of the pandemic is grounds for arrest. 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 details the use of covid 19 by the maduro regime as an excuse to crack down on dissenting voices of lawyers, journalists, and healthcare workers. this video shows peoe being forced into hard labor for not wearing masks, and children forced to do pushups for being out in the streets. >> actually, the regime has been telling to the people that they are in control of the pandemic, which is not true.

>> reporter: the maduro regime claims to have performed almost two million covid but it's unclear whether that number refers to the rapid test or the more reliable p.c.r. thich is performed with a nasal swab. thhegovernment's figures put country's total coronavirus cases atver 60,000, with nearly 500 dead. there is no independent tally and dr. castro believes the numbers are muchigr. >> we have just one lab for the whole country to do the p.c.r. >> reporter: just one lab for the entire country?. >> just one lab. >> reporter: venezuela is roughly twice the sizef california, so getting anything anywhere, requires goline, which is in short supply, thanks to decades long mismanagement of the country's oil industry, as well as u.s. sanctio atop the world's largest oil

reserve, people wait in line for hours to fill their tanks. and for the first time, gas, which has always been free, is no lger completely subsidized, adding enormous pressure to a struggling economy, where families go through the trash to feed their children.>> eporter: it was conditions like those that forced five million people to flee in the last several years. but now, the country is facing a is: reverse migration in the middle of a pandemic. 27 year old kevin delgado, is one of tens of tzuusands of veans who have been forced to return home was living in neighbori colombia when the pandemic hit and thwarehouse he worked in closed down. he says he w out of work for 22 days when he was suddenly evicted. with no other options, he made the painful decisi to head back to venezuela. hend three other friends s out, at first hitchhiking. this is some of his cell phone video.

then three days walking through the paramo, an unforgiving mountainous region that stretches from the tip of the andes in peru all the way up to venezuela. >> ( translated ): psychologically it was difficult because people have talked about the paramo, the cold, people have died from hypothermia. >> reporter: by the time they arrived at the venezuelan border, there were 500 returnees waiting. they were given rapid covid quarantine for 12 days at an abandoned school, in a village where they were not welce. >> ( outranslated ): it took because people were blocking the streets and wouldn't let us through, they were saying "they are contaminated, th going to get us sick." >> reporter: maduro has consistently called out turnees for bringing the virus into venezuela.hi invideo he refers to them as bioterravists. othersreferred to them as fascists, traitors for leaving to seek a better life outside. >> ( translated ): in colomb ey took care of us, but as

soon as we got to the venezuelan side, they didn't even give us water. we only had ectricity four or five hours day. they put 74 of us in one room, practically on top of each maher. i shared mress with another person. first thing i thought was"the they're going to put me with five hundred people? i didn't know if they were st k. that was wde me panic. >> reporter: kevin says he's grateful it wasn't worse. claims of noood 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 and no place to sleep, only broken chairs. "please help us, get us out here," he cries, "we are going to die here." >> and they stay there maybe fow weeks, three weeks four week five week. and they get infected in those in tse in those places. t tt that ty are doing

the people do not have food, do not have water, do not have electricity, they haveo deal with a military guy. so the situation there is very concern in terms of human rights.'r >> reporter: ysaying that they're held there under difficult circumstances and squalid conditions.en and he testing isn't even accurate. >> yeah. >> reporter: but dr. castro did get an accurate test: after months on the frontlines, he tested positive lar the virus in august. and is now recovering at home. the new focus on the virus comes re the country remains mid in political stalemate. maduro clings to power despite the recognitioby the u.s. and dozens of other counieof opposition leader juan gido as the rightful president. w ere there seven months ago guard troops barred guaido from enteng parliament and pro- government vigilantes attacked his car. new parliamentary elections aree slated for decr, but

opposition members have pledgedw to boycottt they say will be a rigged election. in the meantime, the venezuelan people suffer. kevin finally arrived home and is living with eight other familyembers in this abandoned building. he's helping his mother, selling meat and cheese to their neighbor they live day to day, but he says there is no point in trying to save. hyperinflati meansnything t away today could be worth nothing tomorrow. >> ( translated li they buy a le bit everyday, whatever is leftover, we eat. it is not something that's goin to m any money, but this is what is left for us. a >> reporte that is left for a country where crisis has become a way of life. for the pbs newshour, i'm marcia biggs.

>> woodruff: new memorial will be dedicated in washington, d.c. this evening toresident dwight d. eisenhower who served as the 34th president, and the llsupreme commander of thed expeditionary force in europe during world war ii. as jeffrey brown reports, the four-acre memorial comes tofr tion after 20 years, internal controversy over its desi, and at a time when memorials generally are being re-examined. the story is part of our arts and culture coverage, canvas. >> brown: it's a sprawng tribute to the man known as" ike": republican president from 1953 to 1961, and five-star general who planned 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 from the smithsonian institution's air and space museum and national seum of the american indian, directly in front of the u.s.

department of education.e lution chosen to set it off from that 1961 box-style building:a steel tapestry,n representing astract view of the normandy cliffs, especially vivid by night. it's based on a drawing by the man who designed the memorial: famed aritect frank gehry. >> brown: gehry, now 91, is renoed for buildings such as the guggenheim museum in bilbao, spain, walt disney hall los angeles, the new world center in miami beach. memorial nor had hgned anya structure in washington, d.c. >> my first reaction was, why would i want to go to washingtoe aninvolved with all of that? once i did that, i realid how impossible that site was to manage because it had traffic. it had tee office buildings. you couldn't put something in front of them easily. >> brown: but gehry realized he could play to that environment-- nestling a monument to

eisenhower amid government entities that ike as president was responsible for helping bring about: the department of education, the federal aviation administration and what is now known as theealth and human services administration. >> so that that became powerful to consider that here he was being placed in the milieu of his accomplishments, representey hese three office buildings on the way to the capitol. including many in the eisenhower family itself, were notf supportivee early architectural styl wanting a more trational approach to what gehry had in mind. he says they were. rn>> trying to derail a mot viewf memorial in washgton they thought it should be historicist and classical. i tried to respect classical, actually. the columns are literally to a or to be relative toreek but they are a symbol of government buildings.

and so i use them to hold the tapestry. >> brown: gehry's modifications won over the family, including grandson david eisenhower, an historian who teaches at the university of pennsylvania, he served on the memorialco ission. >> my idea for it-- memorials need to convey something in particular-- is that dwight eisenher was part of a great collective effort in the 1940s. at is america's effort in world war ii. and he was very much a part of that. and he was also typical of the and joined in this greatrience enterprise. his greatest speech, i believe, was probablye guildhall on june 12th, 1945, where he was where he was accepting the freedom of london: >> i come from the heaf america.>> rown: the memorial includes a statue of the "boy from abilene," by sculptor sergey eylanbekov. gehry as well.oots that grabbed

>> that was powerful for me.il and i went to e and saw where he was buried and saw the community he lived in and saw the bedroom he lived in with his othetwo brothers. it wasn't very big and very modest. everything was super, super modest. and it was just a lot of things i believed in. >> brown: washington is a city of monuments and memorials, including: washington, jefferson, lincoln. more recently the vietnam memorial opened in the '80s, f.d.r. in the early '90s, world war ii in the 2000s and e martin luther king memorial in 2011. and the building continues: a memorial to native american veterans is being constructed in world war i memorial is about to be completed not far away. but the eisenhower memorial also opens at a very tense time for the nation, with a very different kind of republicant,

presidnd a focus on the history that statues and >> we're in a completelyor. different moment than when we started this memorial.we eed to have a pause. we need to take a moment to think about it. b >>wn: brown university visiting professor and historian renee ater hit studied and n on the role of monuments and "memorialization." >> that's important leat he is ackned. but we also know we have limited space in this city for monumente building and w tthink about who gets to be in those spaces ae we proceed. numental sculpture certainly plays into that idea of the great man ulpture. as we start to think about future memorialization efforts, welyeed to actually more bro include communities in that a discussiut who gets to be in public space, who gets to be represented, and the types of artists that are going to do thn representa >> brown: i asked david eisenhower about these broader and urgentuestions of history and memory.ph >> mosophy is, is that memorialization is something

that reveals us at any given time. and so i think memorialization is a process that is renewed. so when you dedicate the memorial, i think that you are investing or gambling in a sen on the future, that the message that a memorial conveys will have a kind of timeless quality to it. >> brown: the opening of this new memorial, then, offers another chance to co the for the pbs newshoi'my. jeffrey brown. >> woodruff: speaking at the white house conference on american history, president signing an executive order to be crea the "1776 commission," which he said would e a "patriotic education." he also blasted efforts to reexamine american history with a deeper emphasis on slavery and racism.

>> by viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want timpose new segregation, and we must not allow that to haen. critical race theorythe 1619 project and the crusade against american history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison, that if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together, will destroy w >> woodrf: ote house correspondent yamiche alcindor joins me now to explain. so, hello, yamiche. race, as we know has been sump a arged pic in this country for so much of this year. this isn't the first time the president has addressed race. give us a little more context about what was behind what the >> well, judy, as you noted,

race has been a topic ofon conversan this country for year.g time, but especially this president trump as theel 2020 tion 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 america racist. today what we heard from the president was more of him attacking americans that are really looking at this country and saying we need to really understand the legacy of slavery in a more robust way. the president, in particular, was making a case without evidence that there isa sort of historical movement afoot to distort american history and and the next generation ofen americans with a liberal ideal thatill benefit democrats. he said that a lot of these people that he believes are out thre really using america's schoolto push forwa this idea that america is flawed and that we shouldn't respect ondur

fs and respect historical figures. that, of course, iinaccurat he took aim specifically at the 1619 projects. this is, of course, a pulitzerer prize winning project founded and created by nicole hannah jones. shis someone who wants to look at america and say there are founders in our countt we need to understand in conxt, pointing out people like thomas jefferson and george washington, people who are american heroes but who also own slaves. as part of the 1619 project, wh we saw waa robust telling of all the different ways that slavery continues to touch our daily lives and, ofourse, the idea there were hundreds and thousands of americans -- of black americans kidnapped from the content of africa and brought to the united stes and forced to work, raped and killed d pillaged, in order for america to enrich itself and white americans to benefit from that. the president was making the inge this needs to change. he sai's

an executive order, a national commission onatriotic education. it's not clear what that meant. i have been talking to white house sources whoays the president cares about this, but rosentially p16thct jeis i bsased on facts, judy, nn exploitation or falsoods. >> woodruff: so, yamiche, the president also, tod, ashe has before, criticized the protests ver racial justice around the couny. us a sense of what the message was there. >> well, the president was saying that this htorical movement to distort american ideals, whie'ch, again, thno evidence of this movement, that it led to theprotests we've seen all over this country. what i know as someone w covered the protest is they're taking to streets because they nstrtorne african teeral bill-a barr at one point suggested charging

protestersdh wsek theament as unlawful and that has really scared a lot of people, frane y, and eshim as politicizing this. the president continues to talk about protesters as if they're domestic territories and attorney general bill barr has also followed suit. i should not it's in tandemwith this campaign of the president. >> woodruff: ictn conn with the attorney general, yamiche, today -- or just yesterday, i should say, he was speaking about the stay-at-home orders in connection with the pandemic, with covid, but he tied it to race. let's listen. >> putting a national ln,kd stay-at-home orders is like ituse arrest. nd kery, - which was a differeni intrusion on civil >> woodruff: so, yamiche, ow

this beg read? >> well, it's been read as tone deaf and ridiculous. attorney general bill barhr saying stay-at-home orders which are about people voluntarily staying home to stay safe amid a pandemic is,f course, not the same thing at all as slavery, an idea that people were exploited and kidnapped and raped and kild jim clueburn, the second or third-ranking house democrat, house democrat whip said this was tone af and god awful. thing to note is this connectsr witheh wh the people say is the unjust politicizing of the department of justice. torney general bill barr was equating rank and ecklash for prosecutors with pre-schoolers saying they should not be in charge ultimately of making a lot of the decisions, in particular cases, s really getting pushback on that. anthere are people saying this is alarming attorney general

ofll barr is taking the side president trump too much and treating the department of justice as if they're personal attorneys for the president. of course, attorney general bill barr has been shing back on that, but a lot of critics are saying this is just not right. >> woodruff: well, aot to follow today on the ject, yamiche alcindor. us up to speed this evening. we thank you. eaparately on the "newshour" online right nowy on in the pandemic, >> woodruff: on the newshour online right now, early on in the pandemic, pediatricians could e another crisis looming: outbreaks of childhood diseases returning as families withdrew from medical care. we lk at the danger of kids siheduled vaccines on our web , pbs.org/newshour. and that's the newshour for tonight. i'm judy woodruff. join us online and again here tomorrow ever ng. l of us at the pbs newshour, thanyou, please stay safe, and we'll yosou e on. >> major funding for the pbs

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