geoff: that evening. tonight, investigating donald trump. the latest on the legal jeopardy. plus president biden sharpens his message. canceling student debt. we get answers to questions around president biden's student loan forgiveness plan. >> 20 million borrowers should qualify to have debts erased, and that's a big deal, although it's not a sure thing. geoff: and fighting covid-19. a look at the vaccines targeting the subvariants and what to expect in the next phase of the pandemic.

all that and more on the pbs news weekend >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- >> for 25 years, consumer cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate. we offer a variety of plants and can find one that fits you. visit consumercellular.tv. >> with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. and friends of the newshour.

this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: the goal of returning astronauts to the moon has been 50 years in the making, but nasa's test launch to orbit the moon with an unmanned spacecraft will need to wait at least another two days. the artemis mission has been postponed the second time this week due to technical issues. the launch had to be scrubbed after a liquid hydrogen fuel leak. the next attempt will be monday. millions of people are under excessive heat watches as temperatures are expected to climb into the triple digits across the western u.s. california officials are urging residents to limit use of air-conditioning and use less electricity during critical hours to prevent blackouts.

the temperatures have fueled wildfires, including the mill fire in northern california. the fire has destroyed nearly 100 homes, injured several, and forced thousands to evacuate. nine migrants have been found dead after attempting to cross a powerless stretch of the rio grande river this week. u.s. customs and mexican officials discovered the bodies while responding to a larger group of migrants attempting to cross. dozens have been rescued and dozens more have been detained. the search continues for more possible victims. in russia, mikhail gorbachev has been laid to rest in a moscow cemetery next to his wife. thousands mind the streets, laid flowers, and viewed the coffin in a farewell ceremony for the leader credited with helping end the cold war.

notably absent, vdimir putin, who cited scheduling conflicts. he reportedly honored mchale gorbachev privately earlier this week. tennis fans likely witnessed serena williams' final match last night. she lost her third round match at the u.s. open, ending a bit for a 24th major title. her 23 grand slam wins are the most by any player in the open era. after the match, serena williams gave her thanks. >> these are happy tears, i guess. i don't know. i wouldn't be serena if there was no venous, so thank you, venus. geoff: she signaled her intention to retire last month, but in her news conference last night she joked that she always loved australia, referring to

the australian open in january. still to come, answering your questions about the biden administration's student loan forgiveness plan. the cdc recommends a retooled covid booster. when should you get yours? >> this is pbs news weekend from weta studios inashington, home of the pbs news hour, weeknights on pbs. geoff: we are awaiting a decision from a federal judge on whether to grant donald trump's request to appoint an independent special master to review the documents uncered by mar-a-lago. a new court filing from the justice department reveals what they found. 11,000 documents, 33 boxes, seven of which were in the former president's office, despite trump's attorneys telling the fbi they were in storage.

48 folders with classified banners were empty. for more on the investigation, i am joined by jeff greenfield and npr justice correspondent carrie johnson. it's great to have you both with us. carrie, the more we learn about this investigaon, the more questions we have. we are going to put up the detailed inventory list, the documents are covered. i want to draw your attention to the 40 eight empty folders marked classified. where are those documents? what questions does this raise for you? carrie: it discusses the idea that things like books, gifts, clothing, personal items were combing gold with secret government information that should not have been at r-a-lago in the first place. secondly, these 48 empty folders marked classified, where are those materials?

are they part of what trump has turned over to the national archives? are they aanother of trump's residences? these are important questions for investigators and for national security officials, who are conducting an ongoing risk assessment of the idea that these papers are out in the wild when they should not be. geoff: donald trump's once loyal attorney general bill barr was on fox and said this is effectely donald trump's own fault. jeff: the driver on this from the beginning was the unclassified information in mar-a-lago. people say this was unprecedented. well, it's also unprecedented for a president to take all this classified information and put them in a country club. geoff: barr also said that the former president's request for a special master is really a red herring, that even if there were some sort of privileged claim, it doesn't matter because the documents still belonged to the government. how do you react to this? jeff: i think what this does is

give more impetus to the notion that donald trump wi be front and center in the midterms. if this sounds like a reach, give me a second. we have seen from the democrats the notion that they don't want a referendum midterm. they want a choice referendum. as biden says, "don't compare me to the almighty. compare me to the alternative." the rather shocking revelations about what's going on in mar-a-lago just adds more power to the idea that the democrats want voters in the midterm to think if you vote for republicans, you are voting for trump and what biden calls the maga republicans. so the turmoil stirred up by what we've heard and the relative recent retreat from republicans from full scale defense, you are not hearing much about abolish the fbi anymore. i think just as we've seen for the last six years, there is something about donald trump that puts him front and center, and as far as the midterms are concerned, that's exactly where the democrats want them to be.

geoff: carrie, we are awaiting word from this trump nominated judge -- confirmed by the senate in late 2020 -- about whether or not she's going to gra his request for a special master. what's the practical impact of that? if she says yes? it strikes me that all it would really do is just slow down the investigation. carrie: it could slow down the criminal investigation, the ongoing and very active criminal investigation. prosecutors said they're using these papers to pursue other avenues, interviews with witnesses, other grand jury material. it also has the potential to slow down the director of national intelligence investigation and and risk assessment, although the judge said this week she hopes that doesn't happen. in other words, the justice department says it's already reviewed a lot of this material for potential attorney client privilege. so it's not at all clear why this additional review would be necessary if the judge orders it. it's also possible the justice department would try to appeal, citing the delay to this very important investigation. geoff: and jeff, as you

mentioned, this investigation is the backdrop to the speech that we heard from the current president joe biden this past week, where he talked about trumpism as an existential threat. i'm told by white house officials this speech was months in the making but the president decided now was the time to deliver it, in part because of the warnings from some republican lawmakers about how a potential trump indictment might lead to lawlessness in the streets and the ways in which the republican party is now coalescing around donald trump. when you saw that speech, how did it strike you? jeff: it struck me as explicitly or maybe implicitly political, because it combined the democracy is in danger with a list of the legislative accomplishments and at the end, you remember, biden said, vote , vote, vote. and so whatever the white house wants to say about the speech, it is clear it had, for me at least, a clearly political intention, and that was to nationalize the campaign. you know the famous line from former speaker o'neill that all politics is local.

that's often quoted, and it's basically often not true. for the white house, they don't want it to be true. they want this election to be decided not just on the fact that there are a few republican candidates for the senate that seem a little outside the mainstream, but again, they want this campaign focused as much as they can on saying, you might not be that fond of joe biden, but look at the alternative. i believe that was the intention of the speech. it was the opening gun of the last round of the midterms. geoff: and carrie, as we wrap up our conversation here, as you continue to do your reporting on the ongoing investigation, what are you paying closest attention to? carrie: i think we are going to wind up seeing some of the people testifying the grand jury who were in donald trump's inner circle. and so it's going to be an open question about that, as well as whether his own lawyers become witnesses or subjects of this criminal investigation. remember they had attested they had performed a diligent search. after that search, a lot of material was uncovered, so it's quite possible trump will need to bring in additional members to his legal team on the idea of

the current members of his legal team may have to testify against him, or be in a pickle themselves. it's an extraordinary situation of the former president's own making geoff: carrie johnson and jeff greenfield, the best of the best. thanks for being with us, appreciate it. today the total amount of student loan debt in the u.s. stands at $1.6 trillion, more than from credit cards and car loans combined. following president biden's recent sweeping announcement on student loan forgiveness, many borrowers could soon see large portions of their debt burdens wiped out. ali rogin has more on the impact of president biden's new policy. ali: 43 million people could see some level of student loan forgiveness and 8 million people with their income already on file with the department of education could see their

student loans automatically forgiven. here is how some people with student debt are reacting to the news. >> i have about $6,700 left in federal student loans, so i'm excited to have that forven. >> i have about $30,000 worth of interest, so yes, that $10,000 won't cover my interest as it stands of now. >> i have student debt over $200,000. it's not like i spent it on clothing, it's not like i went out and started splurging on this. >> i have gotten into plenty of arguments, especially online, about useless degrees. my degree is not useless. my degree saves lives. >> my partner's student loan balance will be completely wiped out, which is huge because he graduated from coty college a few years ago.

for myself, it's not just the loan forgiveness, but it's also the changes to the income driven repayment plan, which means now we are going to save for retirement. >> is an intergenerational impact for me. my mom is getting forgiveness, my brother is having his loan cut in half. i will have some forgiveness. ali: there is lots of excitement, also some skepticism. here's what we know about who is igible. individuals with income under $125,000, married couples making less than twice that. if you received a pell grant, you qualify for $20,000 in debt cancellation. other loan recipients qualify for up to $10,000 in forgiveness. but beyond those parameters, there is a lot we don't know. to help us with those questions, i'm joined by corey turner, correspondent and senior editor for npr's education team. we just went through the ground rules of eligibility. who are the people that are set to benefit the most?

cory: the roughly one third of the student loan portfolio who have $10,000 in debt or less. there are an awful lot of peop. when you add in folks who are going to benefit a little more because they had a pell grant. according to the white house, roughly 20 million borrowers should qualify to have their debts completely erased. borrowers are going to have to jump through a couple of hoops to get this done. it is not a sure thing. ali: that's what i want to draw you out on, because there's millions of people that could be applying for this loan forgiveness. most of them are going to have two apply online. they're going to fill out applications that we haven't actually seen yet. and they have to do that on a website that hasn't actually gone public yet. so how is that all going to work? it seems like it could get messy. cory: the education department says the application should be up and available early october. they say it will be simple.

essentially what the apartment needs is your income information. i have spent the last four years of my reporting career at npr investigating programs like the teach grant, public service loan forgiveness, total and permanent disability discharge, and most recently, income driven repayment. and all four of those programs were designed with good intentions that made promises about loan forgiveness and ultimately failed many borrowers. so i don't want to say i am cynical, but i think borrowers, at the very least, need to approach this process with patience and a little grace. ali: as you know, there's been a pause on student loan repayments because of the pandemic. that's set to expire in january. we've also heard from the white house that they're advising folks to get their applications done and submitted by mid-november in order to avoid having to start making payments . that really just doesn't seem like a lot of time based on your experience with

other programs, are folks going to be left behind? cory: ife assume the white house is right, that 8 million people already have income information on file at the ed department, anytime you are asking 35 million people to fill out an application to get a benefit, i think it's inevitable that some folks are going to be left behind. ali: is there a way for folks to check to see if they are among those 8 million people? cory: my understanding is those 8 million people are folks who were enrolled in income driven repayment programs because that program requires that borrowers submit income information. what i would recommend, though, is that borrowers be proactive. they can go to edd.gov/subscriptions and sign up for email updates from the department, notifying them of new updates to this program moving forward. it's always better to be safe than sorry. [33.7s] geoff: we know another element

of what the biden administration is trying to do is propose a new income based loan repayment program that essentially lets borrowers pay a smaller amount every month than they're currently allowed to, based on their income. can you tel us more about that proposal, and how likely is it to become reality? cory: for folks who will still have debt left over, this could be a really big deal. it does a couple things. it reduces discretionary income from 10% to 5%, so it will bring down your monthly paymt, presumably. another big deal is it allows for forgiveness after 10 years instead of 20 years, if your loans are below a certain threshold. one more really important thing it does, and i've heard from lots of borrowers for whom this has been an issue in the past -- we know that roughly half of borrowers who were previously in income driven repayment plans earned so little income that they qualified for a zero dollar

monthly payment. well, the problem previously is if you are making a zero dollar payment, interest is ballooning. undethis new proposed program, interest will be covered by the federal government, so borrowers in income driven repayment plan in this plan will no longer see interest blow up their debts, even as they're following the rules of the plan. ali: that seems like something that got overshadowed by the kind of shiny object that was the announcement about loan forgiveness. critics say that this the forgiveness program obviously doesn't really address the long term issues related to college affordability. what's the biden administration's track record on that so far? cory: the critics are right, because it doesn't. affordability is like a coin. it has two sides. you have the borrowers who are trying to afford college and this plan helps them considerably. on the other side is the cost of college, and this plan does absolute nothing to lower the cost of college or to lower

college's price tags. i will say that is something that is much more difficult to do. i'm not sure how the president could possibly do that through executive authority the way he has done this. that is something that is likely going to require an all-in effort from congress. ali: [00:09:17]cory turner, correspondent with npr's education team, thank you so much for your time. cory: you're welcome. geoff: the fda and cdc signed off this week on updated covid-19 vaccines to boost protection and limit the anticipated seasonal search this fall, an important turning point in the fight against covid. joining us to talk about that and more is dr. peter hotez

, the codirector of the center for vaccine development at texas children's hospital and dean of the national school of tropical medicine at baylor college of dicine. the retooled vaccines are authorized for everyone 12 and older, but does everyone 12 and older need a booster? >> 12 and older for pfizer and 18 and older for moderna. the answer is yes and here is why. it looks as though protection from the mrna primary series of two shots or even after a booster starts to wane or decline, even against hospitalization protection, so the point is everyone's going to need a booster, which means that if you have not got -- obviously, if you have not gotten vaccinated, you need to get vaccinated. if you have been vaccinated but not boosted yet, now is the time to do it. and even if you've gotten a single booster, you need two boosters. if you are over 50 and have

gotten two boosters and are more than two to four months out, you are going to need a third booster as well, a fifth immunization. the reason is twofold. one, it will dramatically reduce the likelihoodt you'll be hospitalized or have to go to an icu with covid-19. second, the existing lineages is still with us, the ba-5, so this gives protection from that and the subvariant. the last reason, which people don't talk about a lot, is we really don't know what's coming down the pike. we don't know what's going to happen this fall and winter and whether we will see a brand-new variant of concern that we have not seen before. and the thinking is by having a booster that gets both the original lineage and ba-5, it hedges your bets and gives you two shots on goal to make it more likely it will protect against whatever is coming down the road.

geoff: want to ask about monkeypox, because cases across the country are on the decline, but black and hispanic people are more likely to get monkeypox but less likely to get vaccinated. it's not entirely clear what's driving the differences. but this isn't the first disease to see the same sort of inequity. that was the case at the beginning of the covid pandemic. what needs to change to prevent this from happening with the next outbreak of another disease? >> well, we have to expand awareness and the importance of getting vaccinated. you are right. we're not getting that steep, sharp uptick in the number of cases, but it's still increasing, although it's not as not as sharp, and probably that's happening because of some modulation of behavior and the fact that now we have a few 100,000 doses of vaccine administered, but we still have a long way to go. so we really need to reach communities of color about the importance of getting vaccinated. and i know the biden administration is working very

hard on that, but it has still been tough to do. and on top of that, geoff you have the other piece that we don't talk about enough is that black and brown communities are getting specifically targeted now by anti vaccine activist groups. they're being very predatory and targeting those groups and so countering their effects is going to be really important. geoff: i also want to ask you about what's happening in argentina. health officials there are investiging investigating an unexplained pneumonia outbreak. three people have died this past week. what more do you know about it? >> it's 11 cases in a part of northwest argentina near salta. it's fairly focal. and it's presenting with what's called bilateral pneumonia, meaning whiteout on both lungs and chest x-ray. we don't know what it is yet. it's not even necessarily an infectious disease pathogen, but the fact that they're presenting with fever and shortness of breath makes me think that's a

high likelihood. so likely a viral pneumonia. we also know coronavirus is are widespread among the bat populations in both brazil and argentina, and therefore we have to worry about this could be another new coronavirus. the virus has been sent to a reference laboratory in argentina. hopefully, by this week will have some identification and then can take appropriate action. geoff: dr. peter hotez, thanks as always for your time. online right now, hear more from student loan borrowers about their experiences and president biden's plan to forgive some of their student loan debt. that's at pbs.org/news hour. that is pbs news weekend for tonight. for all of us here, thanks for

spending part of your saturday with us. >> major funding for pbs news weekend has been provided by -- and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions. this program was made possible by the corporation for public broadcasting and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. [caponing performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy.]

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