captioning sponsored by wnet >> sreenivasan: on this edition for sunday, september 20: tributes pour in for supre court justice ruth bader ginsburg as the president pushes to fill her seatefore election day. covid-19 deaths and a grim milestone for the u.s. and our special roads to election 2020: iowa and illinois. next on "pbs newshour weekend." >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz.

the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellularhas been offering no-contract wireless plans, designed to help people do more of what they like. our u.s.-based customer service team can help find a plathat fits you. to learn more, visit www.consumercellular.tv. additional support has been provided by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

>> sreenivasan: good evening and thank you for joining us. a partisan battle is underway over the supreme court seat left vacant after justice ruth bader ginsburg's death on friday. vigils and rallies continued outside the supreme court last night in memory of the late justice. >> fill that seat! >> sreenivasan: at a campaign rally in north carolina last night where supporters chanted" fill that seat," president trump said his nominee will be named soon and will be a woman. >> i will be putting forth a nominee next week. it will be a woman. >> sreenivasan: in philadelphia today, the democratic presidential nominee and former vice president joe biden said the next justice should not be nominated until after the election. >> to jam this nomination through the senate is just an exercise in raw political power, and i don't believe the people of this nation will stand for it. president trump has already made it clear: this is about power. pure and simple.

power. >> sreenivasan: for more on the politics othe court battle and what's ahead for the presidential candidates, i spoke with newshour weekend special correspondent jeff greenfield. jeff, what do we know and not know about how and when this confirmation process will happen? >> what the president said yesterday was he intends to send up a nominee verquickly. he said it would be a woman. what we don't know is when senate leader mitch mcconnell intends to take this nomination up, which he does. there's very little time in the senate calendar between now and election day. and there's been some speculation that the vulnerable republican incumbents might not want to cast a vote before election day. now, just in the last day, several of those endangered republicans have said they're signed on with mcconnell-- joni ernst in iowa, tillis in north carolina, mcsally in arizona-- and so, what we don't know is, are there four republicans in the senate, apart from susan collins, who said she would prefer to wait, lisa

murkowski, who said she doesn't think there should be a vote 'til the new president is chosenchuck grassley, former chairman of the judiciary committee, has also said that-- but that leaves only three if they all do that. many, many other republicans have done a complete 180 around their position back in 2016 when they said no vote in a presidential year. and so, it's going to be up to mcconnell in the next day or two to decide, does he want to try a vote now, or does he want to wait 'til after the election and do it in a lame duck session? >> sreenivasan: and things could get contentious. i mean, democrats wouldn't like this idea. >> if trump wins in november, this issue essentially goes away. because even if the democrats were to wind up taking the senate, the lame duck republicans in november could sa look, the people chose trump, it's his nomination and fine. if trump were to lose and the senate were to go democratic and the lame duck republican still said, we're going to confirm trump's nominee in late november, then you're talking

about whatever analogy you like. defcon one, armageddon on steroids. as chuck schumer said, everything's on the table. that could mean expanding the size of the supreme court. it could mean giving statehood to puerto rico and perhaps the district of columbia for four more democratic senators. that means the entire framework of our system is being essentially reduced to who has the power. >> sreenivasan: it seems like this will galvanize people on both sides to get out and vote. >> four years ago, it was clear that the issue of a supreme court justice was helping trump. it got all the social conservatives who were worried about trump's personal behavior back in line. and they were mostly worried because scalia, the most militant conservative, was gone, and they were worried that an obama pick would flip the court. this time it's the liberal icon who has departed. and democrats are saying, well, you know, one more conservative

justice. there goes the affordable health care plan. there goes abortion rights. there goeshe whole agenda. and it's interesting that in the last 24 hours, a liberal fundraising group, actblue, has raised $91 million, which suggests that the traditional analysis that a conservative is helped by a supreme court fight, that may have flipped this year. 'll find out. >> sreenivasan: jeff greenfield, thanks so much. >> thank you, hari. >> sreenisan: last night president trump announced his approval of a deal involving oracle and walmart that would allow chinese owned sociamedia platform tiktok to continue operating in the u.s. the president had threatened to ban downloads of the app, along with another chinese social media app called wechat starting today over privacy concerns. this morning a federal judge blocked the wechat ban, ruling in vor of a group of users who claimed it would infringe on their first amendment rights. the potential deal for tiktok would create a new company called tiktok global which would host data collected from

americans using the app. tropical storm beta; named for the second letter ithe greek alphabet, is heading slowly toward the texas and louisiana gulf coast. the first rain bands from the storm reached galveston, texas, today. the storm may bring as much as 20 inches of rain in the coming days. forecasters do not expect beta to become a hurricane, but if it continues on its current path and makes landfall it will be the ninth named storm to reach the u.s. this year, tying a record set in 1916. the trump administration moved to reinstate sanctions against iran last night over alleged violations of the 2015 an nuclear deal. in a statement secretary of state mike pompeo said the u.s. was triggering u.n. sanctions on iran that had been suspended as part of the 2015 deal, and said the u.s. would pursue additional punitive measures against iran. france, germany and the u.k. released a joint statement this morning saying the u.s. has no authority to reimpose sanctions after withdrawing from that deal

n 2018. the u.n. is not expected to reinstate the sanctions. for more national and international news visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: in the united states, almost 200,000 people have now died from covid-19 according the johns hopkins university coronavirus resource center. the first u.s. infection was reported in january. while deaths are well below last spring's rate, "the new york times" reports that on average about 850 people with covid-19 infections die each day as of mid-september. "propublica" reporter caroline chen joined us for more on this grim milestone in the pandemic. >> i think it is such a tragedy that we are now talking about 200,000 deaths. because when we hit the milestone of 100,000 deaths, i wrote a piece then where i said, "what have we learned at this

point? how can we do better?" and i think what is really sad is i think that we're seeing that in many ways we haven't taken the opportunity to have learned from the many people who died in the first place and that many of the people who were so vulnerable when covid first hit us and we were not prepared are still really vulnerable. so, i think people have heard that black and hispanic people are particularly vulnerable but, you know, nationallyblack people are dying at 2.4 times theate of white people. that's 21% of the covid-19 deaths are black people. this is according to the covid tracking project. at the time when we were at 100,000 deaths i looked, and this is according to the kaiser family foundation, about 35,000 deaths were in the long-term care facilities. this is both residents and staff. and so, at that point, i had been calling on-and many people, of course, besides me,

who knew from, from the very start of the pandemic in kirkland, in washington, that nursing homes were vulnerable and we should have at that point said nursing homes are the biggest priority. so, i, you know, in preparation for our call, i thought, well, has the proportion of deaths in nursing homes changed between the first 100,000 and the second 100,000? and, unfortunately, it's the same raw number between the first 100,000 and second 100,000. so, even though cases in long- term care facilities are only 8% of the total, deaths in long- term care facilities are 41% of the total. you would think that this would be one of the top priorities to keep this population safe. and we've known since the very beginning that they are particularly vulnerable. so, i think there is this sadness and this tragedy-- it's not just a number, but in knowing who has suffered here, that i feel particularly sad that we have to be talking

today, hari. >> sreenivasan: yeah. briefly, we're heading into the ll, people are concerned about the flu, but if we wear masks and take some of the precautions to keep covid-19 out of our lives, there's a good chance that flu will also stay out. >> absolutely. and i think we, we have seen this both actually when the pandemic first hit, scitists did see that in places where, you know, particularly as lockdowns came in, that covid mitigation strategies actually helped to cut short the flu season. so, we don't know what this year's flu season is going to look like, how bad it's going to be, but covid mitigation strategies can also, of course, help with the flu. >> sreenivasan: yeah. >> the other thing that i have to mention is that, unlike with covid, while we don't have a vaccine yet, we have a flu shot. so it is definitely a good time to be getting your flu shot now because it's already out and available. so that's something we can do to help make sure that the flu season is not a bad flu season. >> sreenivasan: and finally, speaking of vaccines, even the

best case scenario, even if there is one this year, it is not going to be available for wide scale distribution until sometime next year. >> yes, that's definitely true. so we're all hoping that there ll be a vaccine that does well in the phase three trials, we don't know yet. i think one thing that has been maybe difficult for people to get in their head is that we have to have this layered approach to combating this pandemic. so, we need testing and hand washing, we need distancing and contact tracing. and we're going to need actually masks and vaccines because the vaccine is not probably going to be 100% effective. so, if we have one that can help reduce severe disease so if you get infected you don't end up in the hospital, that's great, but it might not prevent you from getting infected in the first place. so we might still need masks. so we're going to need to be able to do all of these things at once. >> sreenivasan: caroline chen of "propublica." thanks so much. >> thanks for having me, hari.

>> sreenivasan: with the election six weeks away, we're continuing our roads to election 2020, with a look at iowa and illinois. on august 10-- about six weeks ago-- a rare windstorm knn as a "derecho" pummeled a 750-mile stretch of the midwest with upwards of 100 mile-per-hour winds. eastern iowa and the city of cedar rapids were hit particularly hard, with up to 140 mile-per-hour wind gusts-- similar to a category 4 hurricane. wshour weekend's christopher booker has more. >> oh, man. oh, man. >> reporter: they're often compared to a hurricane, but the winds of a derecho, while just as furious, behave a bit differently. spanish for "straight ahead," unlike hurricane or a tornado, the winds of a derecho don't spin, rather, they push in one

single direction and the storm marches along in a straight line. they form when the wet air of a thunderstorm meets drier air, creating strong winds of 58 miles-per-hour or more, called downbursts. and while not a regular summer occurrence, they can form quickly, making it difficult to predict and prepare for. with this, how much warning did you guys have? >> it was about 115 minutes. and i heard the sirens go off. to me when the sirens go off, it's typically like high winds, but they're usually a gust. you know, they don't hang out for 45 minutes and they're not 122-140 mile-per-hour winds. >> reporter: even if raymond siddell had more te, it's hard to see how the destruction of the august 10 derecho in eastern iowa would have be avoided. >> it was massive. it's just-- it's catastrophic for our area. >> reporter: in the days following the storm, with power lines and tusands of downed trees, eastern iowa began to assess what had happened. in cedar rapids, more than 1,600

buildings damaged-- 1,000 housing units were deemed unlivable. >> they've offered so much support. >> reporter: siddell, a community organizer in cedar rapids, manages a resource page on facebook with over 67,000 members for those affected by last month's derecho. he said that temporary housing is still needed for those displaced residents. as of two weeks ago, it was about 150 families, but the city said that number is "flui, as housing is repaired and rental units become available." >> it's hard to find housing when so much destruction takes place. so, i know that we do have some in hotel rooms currently, but we also have some that are living in homeless shelters. >> reporter: and for those who aren't displaced, siddell says residents are also still struggling to clear tree debris. >> that's going to go on for a very long time. they've passed through neighborhoods one to two times at this point, trying to remove debris from the curbside. but as soon as it's removed, residents are bringing what was in their backyard to their front yard to have that removed as well. people are tired. you know, they're exhausted.

>> reporter: but the derecho didn't just leave its mark on the city of cedar rapids and its suburbs. iowa's rural farming communities were also hit hard. just west of cedar rapids, farmers like lance lillibridge are still assessing just how much of their crop was destroyed. >> our corn is really twisted up pretty bad. it's still harvestable, unlike a lot of people who were zeroed out, their corn was totally wiped out. >> reporter: lillibridge is vice president of the iowa corn growers association. he says hundreds of farmers were affected this year, as the windstorm flattened their crops and burst open grain bins. and the cleanup is still going on. >> so, this one is by far probably the biggest weather event i've ever seen in my lifetime. >> reporter: the u.s.d.a. estimates at least 550,000 acres of iowa corn won't be harvested this fall because of the derecho, and lillibridge says crop insurance doesn't fully cover what was lost for farmers. >> financially, it's devastating. even though we have federal crop insurance, that'll never, ever cover what some people have lost.

crop insurance will only cover, depending on how much of it you buy, maybe 70-90% of what you've lost. if you have two or three of these events in a row, you know, maybe it's flooding or maybe it's a hailstorm or maybe it's a derecho. long term, it can be real devastating on the insurance part of it. >> reporter: so, this isn't just a necessarily a one time economic hit. >> absolutely, yes. some people will never make it up and they'll just be done. unfounately, we've heard some of that, guys that are not going to rebuild and they're probably not going to farm again. >> reporter: for iowa, the recent derecho is just the latest environmental disaster. in 2008, the worst flooding in cedar rapids history caused $10 billion in damages tthe area. in 2012, a drought hit the midwest that impacted the entire corn belt. this year, it's a double whammy: the loss from the derecho and coronavirus recession. farmers had already seen the price of corn-based ethanol drop as demand for gas fell as

americans stayed home because of the coronavirus. >> a lot of plants shut down or, or idled back some, you know, cut production. >> this comes up every day. it's like being kicked while being down, right? there were so many people that still weren't working or they weren't working the same number of hours and earning the same wage that they were before. so, to then experience something catastrophic like this, those that had already depleted their savings or tapped into a retirement account, those that were uninsured and those that just fall into an already struggling group, you kw, they're just being hit that much harder, trying to clean up or recover from th. >> reporter: more than five weeks later, 27 counties in iowa are still under a state disaster declaration. so far, residents have received only $7 million from fema. >> sreenivasan: we continue our special "roads to election 202"" coverage now with more from iowa pbs senior producer and director andrew batt who joined us from des moines.

>> really, when you think about iowa, we've been in this presidential campaign for well over 18 months now. we had competitive primary season here in iowa and it's rolled right into some races that were not originally thought to be competitive, but have been and are. iowa has kind of slipped back into a toss up state by some prognosticators right now at the presidential level. but it's the battle for the u.s. senate where you see a lot of interest and money being spent on the airwaves here. we also have three very competitive races for congress. >> sreenivasan: what are the issues that are driving it right now? is it about covid? is it about the derecho and the sort of environment disaster that farmers have survived? is it about recovering from the losses thatovid also brought to farmers? >> the short answer, hari, is yes, all of those things play out. some of them are, are a bigger focus in maybe a specific congressional district, but

none, none of these issues escapes covid right now. i mean, it's impacting the lives of anywhere there's, where there's kids that want to go to school or, or the adults that want to get back to the regular daily lives. you know, iowa is often framed in what are the issues that impact the rural parts of the state, what would impacts agriculture? and those are our big issues and have been for many years now in the trump administration. the real focus in the last few weeks has been issues pertaining to ethanol. and just in the last couple days here, president trump traveled to the neighboring state of wisconsin to promise more money, more money for an agriculture and farm sector that has been sent a lot of money in recent years. >> sreenivasan: i mean, what is it that ultimately is going to make iowa a toss up state when it comes to the presidential race? >> i think if you look back at where iowa has been in more recent memory before 2016, it was a, it was a competitive state that, that was purple, but

leaned blue at the presidentia level for many years and was competitive. and what donald trump did here is he won this state by a larger percentage point gap in 2016 than he won the state of texas. and what joe biden on the ticket has done, as opposed to hillary clinton, is he has immediately narrowed that gap. but that battle over rural isss that the trump administration and their campaign is clearly making, the decision that coming in and saying that we are supporting you with money, with, with dollars from the federal government is going to bolster the support. and that can either be read as they think that they had, may have some issues out here in rural america, maybe some fading support, or they just really want to bring their numbers up in rural parts of the state. >> sreenivasan: alright, andrew batt from iowa pbs, thanks so much. >> thank you. >> sreenivasan: in neighboring illinois, early voting in the race for the white house begins this coming week. i spoke with wttw news director hugo balta recently from chicago on what voterthere are concerned about as they prepare

to mail in their ballots. >> and that's really the major concern here in illinois for voters. it's what's going to happen beginning with early voting, that happens at the end of the month, stember 24, and, of course, on election day. the overwhelming number of illinoians have been sending in an order to mail to be able to file their ballots through the mail. we've seen the numbers triple from 2016 to 2020 in regards to the amount of requests to do so. so, there's a lot of concern in regards to, you know, how the system's going to work and even in-person. what, what process, what procedures are going to be put into place to ensure that people that are voting in person will be safe. >> sreenivasan: people often forget that chicago is not illinois. there is a very different political landscape as you travel throughout the state. i mean, obviously, chicago is the 800-pound gorilla, it's got a huge number of people, third largest city, but this is not

just a democratic attempt. this is to make sure that there are lots of republicans in illinois who get their votes counted, too. >> absolutely. you know, you see, illinois is a blue state. and in 2016, it went hillary clinton. but outside of chicago, outside of cook county, in the rural areas, you see a lot of support for president trump. i think most of the support for participant biden is within chicago, but you're right. i think when we look at not just the general election, but elections within the state of which there are many, including for u.s. senator and cook county state's attorney's office, that there is a lot of competing ideologies, both on the republican side and the democratic side. >> sreenivasan: how does covid-19 shuffle the deck when it comes to the priorities for voters the? >> you know, i think it's everything.

you know, we are in an extraordinary year, largely driven by covid-19. and certainly we've seen how communities, both urban and rural, have suffered under covid-19 from a health perspective, to also the economy and employment. a lot of businesses forced to shut down or readjust for social distancing. so, what's top of mind for voters is, again, how are we going to-- who, who's-- how and who is going to get us through this covid-19 pandemic, understanding that it's tiered and there's an expectation that now that summer is ending, that we're going to see a resurgence of cases and numbers of covid-19. there's also, of course, heightened concern about t economy and what's going to happen once we get through this, or as we're getting through this, a recession, how the marks are handling it and especially for small businesses.

will they be able to sustain? i think the are the two things that are top of mind for voters as they're looking at november 3. >> sreenivasan: hugo balta, news director of wttw in chicago. thanks so much for joining us. >> thank you very much. . >> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshou weekend, for the latest update go to pbs.org slash news hour, i'm hari sreenivasan, stay healthy and have a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media accessroup at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar wachenheim iii. the anderson family fund. bernard and denise schwartz.

the cheryl and philip milstein family. barbara hope zuckerberg. the leonard and norma klorfine foundation. charles rosenblum. we try to live in the moment, to not miss what's right in front of us. at mutual of america, we believe taking care of tomorrow can help you make the most of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement serv and investments. additional support has been provided by: consumer cellular. and by: and by the corporation for public broadcasting, a private corporation funded by the american people. and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you.

-in a country where bustling cities

are the centers of the universe for millions of people, more of the actual land mass of the united states of america looks like this. and when millions in the cities leave to escape and reconnect with the natural world, the forests, derts, and coastlines of places like our national parks become crowded themselves. as a civilizatn, we seem to find something we perhaps misidentify as comfort in numbers. ♪ but here, comfort isn't so easy to find. ♪ east of the rocky mountains, the ground levels and sprawls into a region of america called the southern great plains. it's a mix of small towns,