>> good evening. i'm geoff bennett. on the newshour tonight, hamas releases two american hostages. a glimmer of hope at a time when many others remain captive. and when palestinians in the

u.s. are fearing for their families under israeli bombardment in gaza. >> i try my best to think that the worst is not going to happen , although that's probably wishful thinking at this point. >> republicans pull their support for congressman jim jordan to be the nominee for house speaker, leaving the chamber once again with no clear path forward. and david and jonathan give their takes on the president's address to the nation and his call for billions more in aid to israel and ukraine. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs newshour been provided by. the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour including jim and nancy and

kathy and paul anderson. >> consumer cellular, how may i help you? with consumer cellular, you get nationwide coverage with no contract. have a nice day. >> this is what i love doing. early stage companies have this energy that energizes me. these are people who are trying to change the world. when i volunteer with women entrepreneurs, it's the same thing. i'm helping people reach their dreams. i'm thriving by helping others every day. bdo. >> the john s and james l knight foundation, fostering an informed and engaged communities.

>> and 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 contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. geoff: welcome to the newshour. two american hostages held for nearly two weeks by hamas following the terror attacks are free tonight. judith and her daughter natalie were released tonight after mediation by the government of qatar. tell us based on your reporting, how did this happen? >> the international committee of the red cross received them

from hamas and transferred them into israel, gave them to israeli authorities, leading to that extraordinary photo you just saw. american, israeli and qatari officials say they are unwilling to discuss exactly what led to their release or even what happened to them in captivity. that is because there is still intense diplomacy of the other 200 hostages who have 30 nationalities between them. hamas promised today that they would continue to release other foreign hostages as and when security circumstances permit. hamas has threatened that it will kill the hostages unless israel stops its bombing campaign in gaza. antony blinken was asked specifically today whether israel should pause its airstrikes in gaza to release the hostages and this is what he said. >> it's very simple. hostages should be released immediately and unconditionally.

i'm not sure anyone in this room would take at face value or report something isis had said. the same applies to hamas. our position is clear. every hostages needs to be released now. >> there are still 10 americans unaccounted for believed to be hostage in gaza. as you said, qatar was very instrumental and its foreign ministry has released a statement this afternoon saying we will continue our dialogue with both the israelis and hamas and we hope these efforts will stages with the ultimate aim of de-escalating the current crisis and restoring peace. israeli officials saying they have no intention of stopping their campaign in gaza and they will continue to launch airstrikes and this expected ground invasion in the coming days even if that risks the

lives of the other hostages. geoff: they are mother and daughter from illinois. >> judith was born in israel, natalie in the united states. they were visiting family on the border of gaza and israel in one of the communities that were overrun by hamas terrorists. gunmen got into their home and abducted them from a safe room. natalie is 18. the family released this photo of her and her dog. they live outside chicago. judith is an artist and she's really full of life. >> judith is an amazing woman. she walks into her room, she lights up the room. her eyes glow. she has so much happiness, she is such a shining spirit. i said when they were taken that if anybody will be able to

survive this, it will be judith and her daughter natalie because she has so much hope. if you think positively, it will be good. i know that's who she was and it doesn't surprise me she is the first one out. geoff: -- >> the rabbi called her release a miracle but also acknowledged they will need a lot of support from the community to overcome the trauma they had witnessed. president biden said the u.s. government would help them recover and heal. geoff: will their release is some good news on this friday as we hold out hope for the other hostages. israeli airstrikes continue to pound gaza as their invasion force sits ready by the gaza border. on the egyptian side of the border, shipman still await entry to gaza.

>> this was a sanctuary for hundreds of palestinian christians and muslims. but for many, it became a tomb. the historic greek orthodox church was hit by israeli airstrikes overnight. the israel defense forces said the target was a nearby hamas command center. more than a dozen people taking shelter in the church compound were also killed. including the youngest. >> this church is almost 1700 years old and is one of the oldest churches in the world. we have witnessed more than four wars and this is different. it's a total genocide. >> another house of worship in ruins. but that didn't stop the call to friday prayer and it doesn't stop abraham from opening his heart and home to dozens of refugees in southern gaza.

>> when an explosion happens, they are always screaming, they are always frightened. the younger ones we try to calm them down. the ones aged eight and above are the ones that understand what's going on, they can hear and feel. >> at the hospital, the cries of the young are everywhere. gaza's biggest and only well-equipped hospital is overwhelmed and running out of fuel and water. outside, despair. >> we don't want to receive aid. we want to the destruction and the killing of children in their sleep to stop. we are tired. >> aid remains atkinson -- absent. all eyes are on the southern border crossing. a bottleneck of almost 200 vehicles stalled at the gates waiting to roll in. >> these trucks are not just trucks. they are a lifeline.

>> antonio guterres visited. >> what we need is to make them move to the other side of this wall. >> president biden said the delivery deal had been finalized. >> i believe in the next 24 to 48 hours, the trucks will move. >> surveillance footage from the israeli military today it showed strikes on hezbollah targets along the israel-lebanon border. and defense forces bolstered their presence in jerusalem. as tanks remained parked all along the border regions, a full-scale ground invasion of gaza appears closer by the day. >> first we will destroy the hamas organization. the next stage will be stabilizing the system and eventually we will reach the point that there is a completely different security regime here. >> in the west bank, israeli

security divisions are out in force. yesterday the idf conducted an extensive raid in the northern west bank, including a rare airstrike as part of the larger anti-terror operation this week. today the devastation left behind. roads entering the camp ripped to pieces by bulldozers and somber crowds flocking to the cemetery to bury the dead. residents of the camp have turned out to bury a dozen young men killed in an israeli raid last night. palestinian militants have turned out firing their guns and raising the flags of islamic jihad. >> the idf says the young men killed yesterday were terrorists. >> one of the victims families says he was an innocent child. he had just turned 15. he was hiding with his brothers and sisters in their home as the idf stormed through the camp. he went outside to check if they could come out.

he was visibly unarmed and did not approach the soldiers. the idf shot him three times as his sisters watched from the window, he dropped to the ground. >> he saw his kid lying on the street, my father raised his hands and he wanted to pull his kid and to bring him here. but when he saw my brother, he knew that he was dead. he gave him a hug. >> as he tried to retrieve his body, the soldiers shot him, too. >> for two hours bleeding and never let the ambulance, and give my father help. >> he was not there to bury his son today. he is now in intensive care. her hands shake as she speaks, her grief still raw.

>> a 15-year-old is a terrorist? can you believe that? it is a shame to say such words. i believe that if you are fighting a military, in war you can do anything you want to. but you are not fighting soldiers, military barracks. you are fighting kids. civilians. >> hospital officials say five of those killed here last night were younger than 17. one boy was just 12. the idf refused a request for an interview about the operation. 83 palestinians have been killed by israeli security forces in the west bank since the hamas attacks and more than 800 arrested. palestinians in the west bank are divided on how to respond to israel's assault on gaza. some are determined to protest and fight. others stay quiet, hoping to protect their families and safely write out the tidal wave of israel's vengeance.

for people living in towns deemed a threat and targeted, that choice is already out of their hands. ♪ geoff: at the u.s. capitol, republican jim jordan is out of the race for speaker of the house. republicans voted behind closed doors to dismiss him as their nominee after he yet again failed to win the job on the house floor today. have the party is once again left grappling with whether anyone could unite its divided members. lisa joins us in studio after spending countless hours on the hill this week. how are you doing? jim jordan as of 9:00 this morning was in the speaker race. by 2:00 p.m. he was out. what happened? >> we have roughly -- we have

had roughly five news cycles since we spoke last night. jim jordan said he was going to make the house vote over and over again. but on the very first mood, he lost momentum. he decided let's go back behind closed doors and see what the conference things. the conference sent a very clear message overwhelmingly saying no, we do not want you to be our nominee anymore. after that happened, of course emotions were high. one of the first out of the meeting was an alumina. >> i think people care more about being in washington than with their voters are asking them to do. we have no speaker. we have a war in the middle east and people care more about their own egos than this country. >> all sides are pointing to everyone else's egos in this situation. with the collapse of jim jordan as an opportunity. the major candidates for speaker are all off the board. this opens up to the entire house conference which over the

weekend is going to say, anybody who wants to run for speaker, put your head in the ring by friday. one of those people was kevin hearn of oklahoma. >> people want to be heard, they want to be valued. there's a lot of historical relationships that some are not going to be able to work around and i don't have those negatives. >> there is that word again. people trying to say they have less ego than everyone else. i will tell you there are plenty of egos to go around right now. there's about 200 people, almost every house republican is thinking about it right now. geoff: kevin hearn is saying he doesn't have the baggage of the republicans have. what does jim jordan's quick rise and fall signal, if anything? >> the fractures in the republican party and many more directions than we realize. there is a break not just between the freedom caucus kinds of conservatives, matt gaetz

types who will go against everyone at all costs. then there are those with jim jordan who have a trump agenda as well. i think there was something to learn from the votes. let's go over exactly what happened with jim jordan. yesterday he received 199 republican votes. today that went to 194 votes. the secret ballot, an hour after that floor vote, 80 six votes from the same republicans who had just given him 194 votes. it will not shock our audience that politicians are doing something in public very different than what they believe in private. there is a rule where republicans are supposed to support their nominee on the floor. nonetheless, they were supporting a man they did not want to be speaker. geoff: what happens on monday? >> we will have speeches from everyone who puts their name in the hat in the hope is for votes tuesday. but it is unclear if that will happen.

i'm hopeful that perhaps something will happen. geoff: one can hope. thanks. >> i'm vanessa ruiz with newshour west. if you are the latest headlines. a judge in new york find former president trump $5,000 for violating a gag order in his civil fraud trial. the judge had ordered mr. trump to delete a social media post attacking a court staffer, but it stayed on the trump campaign website. a defense lawyer called it an oversight. the judge said this is a blatant violation of the gag order. i have made it clear that failure to comply will result in serious sanctions. he stopped short of holding mr. trump in contempt, which could have meant jail time.

a codefendant of mr. trump pleaded guilty in the introduction -- election interference case. kenneth chesbro admitted he conspired to falsify documents in order to overturn the 2020 election results. his plea came as jury selection was beginning. it also came as sidney powell waited guilty thursday to misdemeanor violations. the head of the united auto workers is reporting progress in contact -- talks. -- he said gm and ford are each offering 23% wage hikes but cautioned against settling now. >> the bottom line is we've got cards left to play and they've got money left to spend. that's the hardest part of a strike. right before a deal is when there is the most aggressive

push for that last mile. they just want to wait us out. >> the strike began just over five weeks ago. more than 34,000 union members have walked off the job. the death toll from august's maui wildfire has increased by one to 99. police made the announcement today. seven people are still missing. it was the deadliest u.s. wildfire in more than a century. in russia, a court has ordered a russian-american journalist to be detained for another three days. he works for the u.s. funded radio free radio liberty. she has been held since early june, accused of failing to register as a foreign agent. she was shown in court today confined to a defendant's cage. she is pleading not guilty. torrential rain and gale force wind battered much of northern

europe again today, killing at least three people in the united kingdom. scotland bore the brunt and forecasters called it an exceptional event. rescue teams deployed votes -- boats after the storm dumped a months worth of rain. a rare red alert for more dangerous flooding will be in effect through saturday in eastern scotland. in australia, the landmark sydney opera house with its famed design turned 50 years old today. the laser show brought out crowds to celebrate the occasion and admire one of the great examples of architecture of the 20th century. >> the opera house is one of the most iconic and recognizable buildings in the world. it was born out of a wild crazy idea. it's been turned into one of the most astonishing buildings. it's hosted an amazing number of performances and performers over 50 years. >> the opera house was added to

unesco's world heritage list in 2007. still to come, author michael lewis discusses his controversial book on the alleged cryptocurrency fraud of sam bankman-fried. plus, david and jonathan weigh in on the week's political headlines. country start darius rucker reflects on his decorated career. >> this is the pbs newshour from wha studios in washington and in the west from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. >> for many palestinians living in the u.s., trying to reach loved ones in gaza has become a constant and harrowing struggle. 34-year-old first came to the u.s. back in 2008 to pursue an academic scholarship. today he works as a writer and communications professional in washington, d.c..

much of his family still remains in the central gaza strip. >> for as long as i've been away from home, i have always made sure to at least call my mom once every day. >> even before the war, he says he was often worried about his 81-year-old father who is paralyzed and his 68-year-old mother who is blind. back home in gaza. after relentless israeli airstrikes have left much of his community in rubble, he lives in constant fear for his family's safety. >> since the war started, how hard has it been to get in touch with your family? >> unbearably hard. the land lines, cannot reach them. the mobile's depends if they are charged and if there is self-service. the internet is down most of the time and all i would get is some

kind of short text message that pretty much would say that they are alive. >> it's been three or four days since you have been able to reach them. what are you worried about? >> one of the things that really terrifies me and turns my stomach, what would it be like for a blind person to navigate an actual bombing around her close to her or where she might be? is she going to run, tumble, fall to the ground and be killed just like that? how is that for a paralyzed person? what is the exit strategy? that's what terrifies me. >> and his parents and nearly 30 others displaced from this war are all sheltering in his family's four-bedroom home. >> they were talking about pursuing rationing water and food and applying children first. the water and food and supplies are dwindling and my father's

diabetic. my mother suffers from hypertension. >> have you seen what your hometown looks like on the news these days? >> yes. horrible. i get really shocked when i hear the names of people who have been murdered by israeli violence that sound familiar to me. >> you recognize those names. >> former classmates, former childhood friends. people that are family have known, some relatives. it's really quite horrific and of course the extent of destruction and damage, seeing these familiar streets being reduced to rubble is really quite painful. >> you are seeing what's unfolding on the ground. you know your family is there. what goes through your mind? how do you not just end up consumed with worry all the time? >> i am consumed with worry all the time. and fear.

i just think of the human toll when i see a child being pulled out of the rubble and surviving. that's wonderful. but i also think what will that recovery and healing for the child look like? it's very easy and quick to kill something. it's much harder to heal something. one video that i saw that gave me bruce comes and i broke into tears was of a child who had survived an airstrike, an israeli attack, but was constantly shaking. he was completely shook to the point where it was manifesting physically and people were trying to calm him down. i try my best to think that the worst is not going to happen although that's probably wishful thinking at this point given the extent of israeli violence that we are seeing. >> anyone we talked to, israeli officials will say this is also an existential threat for them, that they cannot live next to

enforce that has overtly said they want to end israel and that this response is about them protecting themselves after those atrocious attacks by hamas on october 7. how do you process back in balance with what you know your family is going through? >> i don't think anyone in their right mind would be relishing this kind of violence. i don't think anybody wanted to get to this point particularly by choice. in terms of existential threat, i think it does growth ways. right now in the gaza strip, people are learning that next-door is a force that we have known has been violent but today is being more violence than ever before. why should we live next to that? >> no matter how dire conditions get in gaza, he says his parents will never leave. >> this is the only home we have ever known. my family predates the british

and the israelis. our records go well into the ottoman records. my father is 80 years old, technically he is older than the state of israel. so we have always been there. the idea that anyone should be leaving their home is really quite preposterous. let's just remember it in the gaza strip right now, the population are refugees who are descendants of a prior israeli aggression that occurred in 1948. and then occurred in 1967. some people could become refugees for a second time or third time. and having learned through it all that they would not be able to return to their homes, people naturally will want to stay and fight for their homes or die there with dignity.

>> the man at the center of a major fraud trial in new york right now, saying bankman-fried -- sam bankman-fried, is also the subject of a new book by michael lewis. we talked with him about his new book called going infinite and the reaction to a story that changed dramatically as he was writing it. >> how many interviews this week? >> actually not that bad. we kind of skipped cable television maybe 20. >> michael lewis was a bit hoarse and has become the subject of considerable blowback for his books nonjudgmental portrayal of its much reviled crypto hero, sam bankman-fried, on trial for defrauding investors. >> can you boil down who sam bankman-fried is? >> sam bankman-fried is a child of two academics from stanford, california who discovered a

peculiar gift for wall street trading after he comes out of m.i.t. and sees in the crypto markets and opportunity to make a whole bunch of money which he says he's going to give away. >> to causes that fund effective altruism. what is effective altruism? >> earn to give. rather than extend yourself in a harmful way to something you do like go be a doctor in africa and saving lives, you go to wall street. you make a fortune and you pay 50 doctors to go to africa. it's like the math works. it's that hooked him. >> both of his parents were proponents of utilitarianism. the greatest good for the greatest number. >> think of the sun taking the parents loose ideas and pushing them to an extreme. >> he amassed his fortune.

>> goes from having zero dollars to heaven $22.5 million. >> how exactly? the super nerd savant leaves wall street and starts his own hedge fund, alameda, trading cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, but mainly dozens of less famous ones. whose prices supposedly differed on different markets long enough that alameda could buy and sell instantly and make a fortune. playing in the crypto casino. fatefully. >> he realizes for a bunch of reasons that there is more money to be made owning the casino rather than trading in the casino. he starts alongside the trading firm, this crypto exchange called ftx. >> it was supposed to be like an exchange. taking money from customers to buy the crypto colons they were investing in. good business. >> very simple business.

you've got $250 billion of crypto being traded every month on your exchange, taking a small fraction, and you make a fortune. venture capital has valued the business at $40 billion. >> spf -- sam bankman-fried -- became sam's companion. he didn't think he was shadowing a con man. >> what happens over the course of several years as a whole bunch of money that is meant to be on the exchange and owned by the depositors ends up in his private trading firm and this gets discovered when ftx depositors start demanding their money back in droves and it's not there. >> instead, alameda was

according to its ceo using it at spf's direction to buy and sell crypto and with a new haircut for court, sam has also been attacked for using ftx is money to fund effective altruists, democrats and non-trump republicans, multimillions on condos in the bahamas and on marketing. tom brady. >> ftx is the easiest way to buy and sell crypto. >> even grouchy larry david. doing much of this with depositors money, which would be criminal. in the prosecution has gotten sbf's computer code or and ellison, the former girlfriend who ran alameda to testify.

so how naive was lewis when the now rich friend he had made rich in an earlier book ask him to check sam out? >> my friend said, do you smell a rat? i said no, what could go wrong. >> you were utterly charmed by him. >> i still like him. >> how close did you get to him do you think? >> my relationship is virtually identical to the relationships i have with all the subjects of my book. if i'm going to describe you well, i have to be able to see your life. >> lewis hasn't nearly enough in denouncing his subjects dishonesty. >> there are some very loud people who would rather me join a lynch mob. and that's not my job. tell the story how i see it and let the figure out -- the reader figure out what they make of it. >> are you taken aback by how much you have become part of the story? >> that will pass.

people who dislike sam bankman-fried and a lot of people do, their first impulse is to like the fact i have even written a book about sam bankman-fried. and if the narrative in the book is more nuanced than the narrative in their head, they don't like that either. i often hope to feel that with the material and given to make a book out of that it is so good i'm only constrained by my literary powers. in this case, this seemed like it rose to the level of great tragedy or shakespeare. >> or to many tracking the trial, sank to the level of simple fraud. more book sales than he has ever had in a first week. more than 100,000 with many to come. in the film rights were sold before publication for 5 million dollars. sam bankman-fried is still worth real money it seems, as a subject.

>> for more on the drama in washington from the search for house speaker to the plea for national security funding, we turn to the analysis of david brooks and jonathan, associate editor for the washington post. let's start with the chaos and paralysis on capitol hill starting with you. your reaction to congressman jim jordan losing his third vote for speaker and ultimately being booted from the race entirely. >> loss of a great statesman. it's become clear the party is like a coalition between two different parties. there is the trump party which is obviously an example of -- jordan is obviously an example of. there are still some pre-trump

republicans and they are angry. they have been pushed around and a lot of them have been motivated by death threats and they're sick of it. they are saying nobody is pulling us around anymore. so they have stood up for themselves. now we have two blocks that are really irreconcilable with each other with as much chaos and hatred in public as it's possible to imagine. you have a rising group of republicans with no loyalty to the institution and its norms. normally the rally around him because it's for the good of the institution. with those rules don't apply anymore. it's very hard to run a party let alone elect a speaker if you are not going to put the institution before yourself. we now have a lot of narcissists hogging the tv cameras and doing parallel play with each other because they can't team up with other people. >> it speaks volumes that jim

jordan was dismissed by secret ballot. behind closed doors, he lost 112 republicans. >> what that means is the public intimidation worked. when they had to go to the floor and before their colleagues and the nation declare their fealty to jordan or their fealty to someone else. but behind closed doors, they were able to say what they really felt. and i'm going to jump on in support of what david was just talking about. steve scalise wasn't institutionalist. congressman jim jordan is not institutionalist. he has never been about governing. he has been about burning the place down. the idea that he was speaker designate says a lot about where the republican party is in the idea that he thought he was going to be speaker of the house. he was not interested in governing at all. if he had been, he would have a

law with his name attached to it. but he came to washington to deconstruct government, the house. i applaud the republican conference for secretly, but at least booting him from being speaker designate. now the bigger question is who in the republican party in the republican conference can get 217 votes in order to be speaker out right? i don't see who that is. >> it's a good question. why were republicans unable to clinch victory from the jaws of defeat? there was this viable option of patrick mchenry. democrats would have supported the but ultimately republicans killed. >> i think that's because they failed to put governing first. we were in a situation where all these major issues sit on the floor. at a normal time if people are interested in legislating,

governing, the actual physical state of the country, they say this is not the time to have a brawl. if you have been raid your whole career to think the point of coming to congress is to get on fox news, that's your default way of being in the world. matt gaetz, jordan, they don't have another way of being in the world. it became like a gang war in high school. like a turf war from west side story or something like that. it's very hard to pull out of that. >> let's shift our focus from capitol hill to the white house. president barden talking about how the wars in israel and ukraine are not just their own, but they are linked directly to u.s. national security issues. -- interests. what were your takeaways from that? >> i thought the president's speech was a homerun in that he stood up for american values and national security, but also for

democratic values. there is a link between ukraine's fight with russia and also israel fighting for its democracy as a result of the terrorist attacks by hamas. if those democracies were to fall to those terroristic activities, then what does that mean for the democratic experiment around the world? i think the president was absolutely right to say that in both those efforts, the united states is the indispensable nation. it's not to say that america is exceptional or anything, but when putin invaded ukraine, the world turned to biden to pull it together. when hamas attacked israel -- israel can protect itself. but when it comes to talking to

other nations about opening up humanitarian lines to gaza and things like that, they turned to the united states. american power is essential and i think the president is saying to republicans that you must get your act together because these nations need america's help. there's only about 26 days until that continuing resolution expires and there are only nine legislative -- nine working days to get something done. >> the president said the u.s. holds the world together. it was very much a recitation of president biden's worldview. >> and maybe why he was elected at this moment. he used the word inflection point. i think he's right. there is a foreign policy scholar named robert kagan who wrote a book called the jungle grows back.

the point of that book is people don't take u.s. leadership for granted, but when the u.s. begins withdrawing, that's a green light putin and hamas. the u.s. has to be involved. it's not a role we have ever loved. if you are as dominant in economic and military power, it's a role that is thrust upon you. the president and the administration put together an aid package that includes aid to israel and ukraine. it's a mold site let's keep the world safe aid package. let's fight off barbarism aid package. and it's expensive. imagine the cost if ukraine fell. imagine how much our defense budget would have to go up if china took over taiwan or hamas pushed israel out of existence. this bill that the administration put together while costly is way less than the alternatives.

>> i want to talk about the increased legal exposure facing donald trump. kenneth chesbro and sidney powell both accepted plea deals in that election subversion case. what do you think this means for donald trump? >> there is a great scene in the movie ghost where whoopi goldberg says to demi moore, mollie, you in danger, girl. i would say exactly that to donald trump. people were giving the da a hard time for the number of indictments she leveled, wondering whether she is biting off more than she could chew ringing this huge case and we are seeing why she did it. because she knew as all prosecutors know that someone or multiple someone's will flip. what's interesting is we went from a bail bondsman to the coo in sidney powell to the chief architect in kenneth chesbro.

if you are donald trump and those were your fellow defendants, i would be quaking. i would be shivering in my boots. >> how do you see it? >> the significant thing according to legal experts was that powell got an awesome deal. she did stuff that was credibly felonious and with this deal she gets probation. the fact that they offered her such a sweet deal is a sign they really want her to testify. that's not a sign that she is going to tell the truth and donald trump will get off scott free. you don't offer somebody a deal if that's what the evidence shows. trump should be worried and we as a country should be worried for the moment that he starts winning primaries and getting convicted in the same week. it could happen and i have no idea what it looks like. >> thanks.

darius rucker first achieved multi-platinum status with the band hootie and the blowfish. he has won all of the big awards many times over and just this month added a few more accolades to the list. i caught up with him in his hometown of charleston, south carolina to talk about his new solo album and his new outlook on life. it's part of our arts and culture series. >> always wanted to have my own festival. >> and to do it at home. >> no place else i wanted to do it. >> darius rucker willed the riverfront revival music festival into existence. he reflected on what it means to him. >> it's great. this is mine. this is my festival. >> the 57-year-old headlining

his own music festival and celebrating the release of a new country album. promoting it with an in-store performance at charleston's monster music. we were there as he entertained the crowd, packed into this old-school record store with a trio of hits, including this one , wagon wheel. this song dates back a decade to 2013 when he wrote this smash singleton number one on billboard's hot country songs chart. and made it one of the top five best-selling country songs of all time. darius rucker was inducted into nashville's music city walk of fame and will soon receive a star on the hollywood walk of fame. raised by a single mother, money was hard to come by. at times his three-bedroom house held as many as 14 children and

four adult family members. they were always rich in love. in large part because of his mom , the namesake of his newest album. >> she was awesome. she was my biggest champion and biggest supporter. she died young, 51. i think i was 25 or something like that. she was always the one giving me permission to do whatever i wanted to do. she just believed in me. she was a great mom. >> how is this album and almost to her? >> my whole life and career has been an almost to her. -- homage to her. i was having a bad day at the studio and i just sat down and said to myself out loud, at the end of the day i'm just my mom's boy. i thought that i was going to

pay the love and respect to her. >> this is your first solo album in six years. >> it's crazy to think about. >> it feels more reflective than your previous work. >> it's probably the most personal record i've made. so many things happened. the pandemic, kids growing up, leaving the house. the stuff we were coming up with in the stuff i wanted to write instantly became true. this is definitely the most personal record. >> darius rucker debuted as a solo country artist 15 years ago following breakout success as the front man for hootie and the blowfish. six studio albums chart in the top 40 of the billboard hot 106 times and the awards piled up.

grammy for best new artist in 1996. billboard music awards for cracked rear view, which remains one of the top 10 best-selling studio albums of all time. a grammy award for her cry in 1996 and and mtv music video award for hold my in 1995. -- hold my in 1990 -- hand in 1995. >> hold my hand. he wrote that as a protest song against racism. >> people don't see it, and that was fine. but it was. racism and all hatred, it was just a thing of trying to bring

people together. >> i first met you 15 years ago when i produced an interview that you did for npr. during that transition into country music, it was not guaranteed that you would be successful. >> always tell people that i would get talked about for a second because of hootie and capital nashville -- there wasn't anybody that looked like me in country radio. i was told the audience would never accept a country singer that looked like me. i just wanted to make country records. my biggest goal with my first record was that they let me make another one. >> where did that sense of persistence come from? >> i'm going to work no matter what. i have work ethic, i put in the work. doing the radio tour where we

went to 110 radio stations, actually saying to my label that i wanted to be treated like the new guy. i think that went a long way. we had the songs. >> those songs lead to a number one albums in his third career grammy for best solo country performance. >> i remember when you won the cma, best new artist. which is hilarious. >> i was 41. >> you weren't entirely new to the music industry. you think country radio because people were telling you that country wouldn't accept. >> country radio, you took a chance on a pop singer from charleston. >> country radio is really still king. that's where people here most of the songs. as much as people talk about streaming and everything.

country radio was so huge in me winning that because they played my songs and a lot of people thought they wouldn't play my songs and that was big. >> fast-forward to the current moment, you are no longer the only prominent black country music artist. >> i love that. i love the fact that mickey is doing her thing and chapel hard and blanco and all these. i was thinking the other day, bet needs to get a black country artist category going. but i love it. i love to see that my success helped country music to see that that stigma wasn't true so now we can let great people in without having to worry about that. >> you mentioned your mom passed before you found music success. what would you think about the

man you are today? >> i think she would be really proud of me. especially with how hard i work and as much as i tried to give back and help jody's. i think she would be really proud of me. she would also say, man i've got a big house. >> and big crowds. he played to thousands of fans at his festival. darius rucker is continuing his tour across the -- the u.s. and europe until may of next year. i asked darius rucker about his favorite songs to play. you can hear his answer on our youtube page. for more on the crisis in the middle east and the chaos on capitol hill, watched jeffrey goldberg and his panel on washington week with the atlantic. for the latest on israel's war

with hamas, tune in tomorrow for previous we can. i'm geoff bennett. have a good evening and a great weekend. >> major funding for the pbs newshour has been provided by. ♪ >> moving our economy for 160 years. the engine that connects us. >> and with the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the newshour including kathy and paul anderson and camilla and george smith. the walton family foundation,

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from our bureau at the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. ♪

>> growing concerns that the ddle east is headed towards all-out war. >> we cannot and will not let terrorists win. >> president biden tells americans that are democratic allies face the threat of annihilation and calls on congress tns