captioni sponsored by wnet >> sreivasan: on this edition for saturday, october 3: president trump hospitalized after being diagnosed with coronavirus, as several lawmakers and top aides test positive for covid-19. the latest on the president's condition, and more. 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. 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. >> sreenivasangood evening, d thanks for joining us. president donald trump remains hospitalized for treatment of covid-19 today at the walter reed national military medic center in bethesda, maryland. a team of doctors is treating the president. the white house physician said he no longer has a fever, his

condition is improving, and that he is receiving a five-day course of the drug remdesivir. >> at this time, the team and i are extremely happy with the progress the president has made. thursday, he had a mild cough and some nasal congestion, fatigue, all of which is now absolving and improving. >> sreenivasan: but the president's personal physician would not say that mr. trump never received oxygen. shortly after the press conference, several news organizations reported that the president did receive supplemental oxygen while still at the white house. and, in another report, an unnamed official told journalists covering the press conference that "the president's vitals over the last 24 hours were very concerning, and the next 48 hours will be critical in terms of his care. we're still not on a clear path to a full recovery." this afternoon, the president tweeted, "i am feeling well!" from the time mr. trump left for the hospital yesterday after 6:00 p.m., white house officials and his doctor have only said that the president will remain at walter reed for "several

days." first lady melania trump, who was also said to have tested positive very early friday morng, remains at the white house. as of this afternoon, at least three republican senators and a number of people in the president's inner circle have tested positive. former new jersey governor chris chriie, who helped the president prepare for tuesday's debate with former vice president joe biden, confirmed that he too has tested positive for covid-19 this morning. with the latest on the president's health status and how his diagnosis-- and those of other lawmakers and aides-- is impacting both the campaign and the scheduled supreme court nomination hearings, i spoke earlier with julie pe, d.c. bureau chief for the associated press. julie, first, there seems to be some confusion on the president's health. we all witnessed the president's doctor at the podium, and then within minutes, we got information that says, maybe the president is not doing as well as the doctor had characterized it.

>> there absolutely is confusion, and this is because the doctor tried to portray, i think, a much sunnier picture of this situation the emphasis was really on how good the president is doing, how well he is feeling, the fact that he is up and walking around. but the doctor also tried to avoid some really specific questions, and we later find it found out that the president had been on oxygen on friday morning, and had been in quite a concerning situation. and certainly people we talked to say that he is improved from where he was on friday, but they also make clear that he's not out of the woods, that the next 48-hour period will be quite crucial. >> sreenivasan: and what happens politically now? how do the campaigns move forward? what-- what does the white house say, in terms of how they plan to continue trying to win re- election? >> the trump campaign is in a difficult position right now because president trump is the draw for their tickets. there is nobody else in the

trump orbit who could draw as many people and as much interest on the campaign trail. he's not going to be campaigning, certainly not for the next several days. the campaign did announce a plan for mike pence, the vice president, to hold a rally later next week in arizona, and we do know that other events are being moved virtually. but the campaign really is scrambling at this point to try to figure out how, just one month from election day, they try to get out there and rally their supporters, when their top person, the president, is sitting in a hospital right now. >> sreenivasan: and there's also the not-so-small matter of a supreme court nomination. what do we know about how congress is planning to proceed, especially considering a couple of senators now who have also been tested as positive? >> right. this is not just a virus outbreak that's happening at the white house. we also have positive cases in capitol hill, particularly two senators at this point who are on the judiciary committee, which will be seen overseeing the amy coney barrett hearing. as of this point, republicans say they are pressing forward.

those hearings will begin the week of october 12. but i do think that this raises a concern about this fast timeline. can they really push a supreme court nomination forward if there's an active concern about the spread of coronavirus on capitol hill? >> sreenivasan: and so far, what has leader mcconnell said about this? >> at this point, they are planning to move forward with the nomination process. they don't want to disrupt this timeline. mcconnell hasn't fully committed to having the full senate vote befo the election yet-- that still has been a little bit up in the air-- but they would like to get her out of committee before the election, so that they have that option. of course, that final decision is tied up not just in what's happening with coronavirus, but also the way they think that the politics of that plays, both in the presidential race and in some of their competitive senate races. >> sreenivasan: and at the moment, what's the pace of how we're expecting to get information from the white house on the president's health? >> well, look, i think this is a great question, and actually one

that we'reretty concerned about as journalists who are trying to get information to the american people. up until today, and in the sort of immediate term after trump's diagnosis, we were getting some pretty brief statements from the white house doctor on paper. we had our first full briefing earlier saturday, and we would certainly like to hopehat those briefings continue on a daily basis. but i do think that the white house is going to have to deal with some credibility issues, given the fact that this first briefing today left so many questions unanswered, and that the situation seemed to change so much, so quickly. >> sreenivasan: all right, julie pace of the associated press. thanks so much. >> thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: for more on the political implations of the president's coronavirus diagnosis, with just a few weeks left until election day, i spoke with special correspondent jeff greenfield, who joined from santa barbara, california. jeff, last time we spoke, you said fate is not done with this campaign. what are the political consequences of what's happened this week, and more specifically, the president's

positive covid test? >> well, the argument from the trump people is thathis actually came, oddly enough, at a time when we needed a break. there was a story of his taxes. there was a calamitous debate which a new "new york times" poll out just today shows really hurt him in florida and in pennsylvania. you had the stories about white supremacy. and so, in this sense, the campaign gets frozen, and there may be a feeling of goodwill, the way there was when reagan was shot in 1981. the counter argument is, wait a minute-- in a sense, trump helped set the politicization of this illness. and i think one of the consequences may be that from trump's most ardent supporters, who've rallied around his case, that it's "a hoax, a fraud, it's overstated, it's political, the mask is an irusion on freedom," this has got to be a bit of a body blow. and if i'm a big trump contributor who went out to bedminster, new jersey, when trump came here to raise money, knowing that one of his closest

aides was positive, that might not s so well. >> sreenivasan: should candidate biden, former vice president biden, should they be out on the campaign trail, considering that the incubation period for the virus that we know about is still several days? are they putting themselves or the people around them in greater danger? >> it's a fair question. i think the answer from the biden people say, "look, we spent six months being as caful as humanly possible. we've been criticized, ridiculed, for taking care. and why should we have to be punished because of our corrt behavior versus the other side's reckless behavior?" no, i don't think that's going to fly. >> sreenivasan: what are your concerns for the president, kind of long-term, not just physically? >> the president's entire approa to life, not just politics, is domination. he's writt about this often. "i have to win. somebody has to lose."

that's why he was looming behind hillary clinton at that debate in 2016. it's why he slaps the nickname "little" on people like marco rubio, adam schiff, "little." "i'm bigger than you." that's who he is. and his whole argument about biden is, he's too weak. he loves that approach with opponents. "i'm the strong guy." so for the president to be in a hospital bed while his opponent is out on the campaign trail, you have to wonder what that does to him psychologically, when his entire life is organized around the idea that "i can't be weak." >> sreenivasan: you, as well as the rest of the naon, saw the president's doctor at a microphone today. given the administration's track record, their lack of transparency on issues around covid, is it legitimate to have doubt? >> yeah, on two grounds. first, there's the history-- a presidential history, of obfuscation. grover cleveland had emergency

jaw surgery and that was kept secret. woodrow wilson had a stroke. that was kept hidden. franklin roosevelt was dying in 1944 of congestive heart failure. john kennedy had all kinds of illnesses that were covered up. the second thing is, this white house has been completely stonewalling about a lot of issues about the president's medical history. why did he go to walter reed several months ago? so, yeah, there are grounds for at least skepticism about whether the public is getting the true story on something that the public has-- has every right to know. we're being asked to re-elect this president, and if we're not getting transparent, clear, honest information about his health, that's a-- that's a pretty serious matter. >> sreenivasan: jeff greenfield, thanks so much for joining us. >> okay, hari. >> sreenivasan: there are a lot of questions about the drugs that the president has been given for covid-19, and when there might be a vaccine that is readily available for all. i spoke about that earlier th pro-publica health reporter

caroline chen. >> at this point, what we know is that the president has received one antibody cocktail made by reneron, which is an experimental treatment. this has not actually been authorized by the f.d.a. yet for the use against the coronavirus. so, we can talk about that later on a little bit more in detail. and then he's also, as of last night, received remdesivir, which has been authorized by the f.d.a. for covid treatment. so those are the two drugs he's received, and they've also specifically said that he's not receiving any supplemental oxygen yet at this point. >> sreenivasan: okay, and the experimental drug, why would you give that to the president? >> yeah, so, that's an interesting choice. and, i don't know. obviously, i'm not in touch with the president's physician. so-- so there is specific thinking there they'd have to explain to the american people. what we do know about this antibody cocktail is that-- there's a little bit of data

that was shared, actually just a few days ago, from about 275 people in this ongoing trial, which showed that the high dose of that treatment, which is what the president received, reduced the viral load of the viral levels in the patients. and it was given to patients who were not hospitalized, so it is intended for sort of that earlier stage. and both of these drugs, actually, both regeneron's drug and remdesivir are both drugs that are intended to sort of reduce the amount of viral load you have, to reduce the amount of virus that's replicating in your body. and so, in theory, it kind of makes sense that you want to give it earlier on, because u want to stop the virus from replicating in your body. >> sreenivasan: the president has access to arguably the best medical care on the planet. one of the things that people are wondering is, well, does he get a vaccine? is there anything that's close

to approval that he could have access to? or, where are we when it comes to vcines? >> at this point, we don't have any indication that we have a vaccine-- or a vaccine that's ose to knowing whether one is successful or not. the one that is closest to the front of the line is pfizer's, and we don't yet have any data that indicates we know that it is effective. so i don't think that that would be an option for the president at this point in time. but the way vaccines work is that they're supposed to stimulate your immune system so that you can generate antibodies against something that looks like the virus. and actually, regeneron's treatment is what's called an antibody cocktail. and so they have, basically, synthetic antibodies, which are man-made versions of your own immune system's weapons against, you know, outside invaders.

and so in a way, i wouldn't compare it to a vaccine, but it is similarly supposed to be helping you fight against the virus. so that's why these antibody cocktails are considered one of the most promising treatments that we might have against the coronavirus. and,he hope is that as regeneron continues to do these trials, that we'll be able to see, not only can they help reduce levels of the virus, which is what we're starting to see in the early trial data, which looks promising, but also that we would, as the trials go on, see whether it can actually help, you know, reduce mortality, reduce hospitalization, actually make a difference to the clinical course of the disease. >> sreenivasan: so are there a lot of companies that are working on these solutions? >> yeah, there are definitely a good number of companies working on this type of treatment as well. the difficulty with this type of drug is that they're hard to mass proce. so, because they are biologics and they need to be sort of grown in these great tanks, so that is the one difficulty with

this type of drug. and so the hope is that, you know, the industry can come together and if there's a successful one, be able to work to make them in vast quantities. >> sreenivasan: all right. caroline chen of pro-publica, than so much. >> thanks for having me. >> sreenivasan: for the latest updatesn president trump,nd more national and international news, visit pbs.org/newshour. >> sreenivasan: the coronavirus is a global pandemic with more than 34 million confirmed cases reported worldwide, and more than one million deaths. the united states still has the most cases-- more than 7.3 million as of this morning, according to johns hopkins university. the u.s. also has the largest number of deaths-- more than 208,000. today, india's death toll rose past00,000 and officials say it may soon have more reported cases of covid-19han the united states. infections increased by more than 79,000 cases in the past day, making india's daily rate of increase the highest in the world. the country now has 6.4 million

cases. in ukraine, former president petro poroshenko was hospitalized today with covid-19. poroshenko was the elected president of the country after the 2014 protests that drove his predecessor, viktor yanukovych, out of office. this pt tuesday, poroshenko announced on facebook that he tested positive for covid-19 and that he was being treated at home. today, however, his wife, marina poroshenko, announced that he had been admitted to a hospital in kiev to be treated for lung inflammation. venezuela has received a shipment of a new russian- manufactured coronavirus vaccine. samples of the "sputnik-5" vaccine arrived in the country yesterday, where they were greeted by venezuela's vice president, who praised russian president vladimir putin for," bringing relief to the world." venezuela's health minister said that 2,000 people will participate in a vaccine trial this month. venezuela is the first latin american country to participate in trials the drug, but health experts warn that not enough testing has been done to safely adminisr the vaccine to people. fighting continued today between

the country of azerbaijan and armenian separatists, the worst violence seen between the two sides in more than 25 years. the fighting began this tuesday in an ethniarmenian enclave in western azerbaijan. so far, at least 230 people have died in the fighting. azerbaijan's president says that armenia bears full responsibility for the outbreak of violence. as of now, armenia's military has not entered the conflict, but the country's foreign ministry says it will use "all necessary means and steps" to protect ethnic armenians. michigan's state supreme court struck down a law that democratic governor gretchen whitmer has used to manage the coronavirus outbreak there. in a 4-3 ruling yesterday, the court said the law is unconstitutional because it takes power away from the legislature. whitmer called the decision" deeply disappointing," and said her orders on covid-19 restrictio, including mask mandates and limits on gatherings, will remain in effect for 21ays. republicans in michigan's legislature have complained that whitmer failed to use a 1976 law

that would have required consultation with lawmakers about emergencies. fires continue burning today in northern california, as the state nears a grim milestone of four million acres of land burned this year. firefighters are currently battling the glass fire, which is threatening 28,000 homes and buildings in napa and sonoma counties. as of this morning, firefighters had contained 10% of the glass fire. a cooling trend is expected to slowly begin tomorrow, and long-range forecast models show a possibility of rain early next week. so far, 31 people have died as result of the wildfires, and about 80,000 people are under evacuation orders. >> sreenivasan: in the weeks leading up to the november election, we have been bringing you the state of play across the country, as part of our "roads to election 2020" series. today, we check in with the state of colorado.

rocky mountain pbs anchor and managing editor john ferrugia joined us to discuss how the political races are playing out there, and w independent voters are factoring in to this election. >> you know, colorado traditionally was ways, you know, one-third democrat, e-third republican, onehird independent. in the past four years, the independents are now making up about 42% of all regtered voters in colorado. 28% are republicans. so, when you see that, and you look at 2018 and what happened in 2018 here in colorado, independents swung totally for democrats. so the democratsre very confident right now that joe biden will do very well in colorado because of the number of-- of independent voters. >> sreenivasan: well, when it comes to the senate race, how does that play out? >> essentially, you have, you know, two real interesting characters in this race. john hickenlooper was the two-term governor of colorado. he's also the mayor of denver. cory gardner, of course, is a very conservative republican, ties himself very tightly to

donald trump and to mitch mcconnell. so, john hickenlooper, being the-- this popular governor, yo know, has the independents, a lot of independents on his side, and of course, about 30% of the state is registered democrat. so the democrats are feeling very, very good about john hickenlooper. however, hickenlooper has really been his own worst enemy. as you rember, he ran for president for a very short time, and during that time, he was asked repeatedly about running, you know, as a senate candidate, and he repeatedly said, you know, "i'm not cut out to be a senator, i'd hate it, this is not what i want to do." and of course, those soundbites are playing over and over and over again in cory ganer's ads. additionally, hickenlooper has been in this situation as governor where he violated, you know, the ethics standards of colorado. he had taken some plane flights from donors, et cetera. and he was cited for that. but he was also cited because he didn't want to testify initially

and was cited for contempt. he used taxpayer money to pay for his defense. those have been ads across the board. on cory gardner's side, he's portraying himself in statewide ads as an environmentalist, and that really has flown in the face of the other ads that are democrats and his critics saying that he's voted nearly a straight ticket with the administration, with president trump and mitch mcconnell, and voting often to lower environmental standards across the board. it's a pretty heated debate over-- over the senate race. and it's narrowing. john hickenlooper had a double- digit lead in this race, and now it's a single-digit lead. >> sreenivasan: how has the pandemic changed this? i mean, right now, you know, we've got some outdoor eating options in certain cities. but colorado, those outdoor eating options, i'm imagining, are going to end by november. and you guys are a big, you know, winter tourism state. >> the economy here is kind of

limping along like other places. and as you've seen over the past few weeks, the numbers of covid cases have risen. people in colorado are now seeing people that are sick, and they know people who have been sick. and early on, maybe they didn't. so i d't know how that's going to change the dynamic. but right now, it seems very fluid in terms of-- of-- you know, people's feelings around the, u know, the covid issue. >> sreenivasan: john, colorado's had a long history of using mail-in ballots. is there any concern about that? >> yeah, i think it's really interesting. in colorado, when you talk to your neighbors and friends here, they can't figure out what this controversy is around mail-in voting. we've been doing this for years. the republicans and democrats alike think it works great. i mean, there isn't a hint of fraud here. this is not a conoversial issue in colorado. and so, all of this-- this-- you know, the covid scare, really isn't-- i don't think will affect voting very much at all, because people are very much used to voting, you know,

by mail. you know, the governor, the democrats, republicans, they want people to vote. so you can do-- you can drop off your ballot-- you don't even have to mail it, you can drop it off at your local library, your police station. you know, it's really a process that's worked for us well in colorado. >> sreenivasan: john, right now, the country is concerned about the nomination of amy coney barrett. what is happening in colorado that could have a national impact on how we think of abortion and the courts? >> there's a ballot initiative to ban abortions after 22 weeks, which is, you know, more than five months. with amy coney barrett, you know, moving to the supreme court, this could be one of those cases that moves up and could move right into the court. and it takes on a much more, you know, national perspective now with the new-- with the new supreme court. >> sreenivasan: john ferrugia of rocky mountain pbs, thanks so much. >> all right, thank you, hari.

>> sreenivasan: that's all for this edition of pbs newshour weekend. for the latest news updates, visit www.pbs.org/newshour. i'm hari sreenivasan. thanks for watching. stay healthy, anve a good night. captioning sponsored by wnet captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org >> pbs newshour weekend is made possible by: sue and edgar whenheim 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 righin front of us. at mutual of america, we believe king care ofomorrow can help you make the mt of today. mutual of america financial group, retirement services and investments. >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps peopleommunicate and connect. we offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our u.s.-based customer service team can help find one that 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 stationrom viewers like you. thank you. you're watching pbs.

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by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you, thank you. - this is now a standard on all the interviews the moving sideways camera. - yeah. - but i always find it odd to cut to someone who's not talking, who'd be talking into camera. - but you know, you've always struggled. remember when you struggled with the talkies, when the talkies given you were always, - i had to work on my voice (mumbles). - then don't keep looking at him remember we're being taped. - argh, just relax. - okay. (bright upbeat music) - hi everyone, this is beyond the canvas. from pbs news hour, i'm amna nawaz. in this episode, we'll meet masters of the art of movie-making, oscar winners and nonees.