♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... woman: two retiring executives turn their focus to greyhounds, giving these former race dogs a real chance to win. a raymond james financial advisor gets to know you, your purpose, and the way you give back. life well planned. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. announcer: and now, "bbc news" >> hello, i'm christian fraser and this is "the context." >> the stage is set, the lights are being fine tuned. a very important aspect of the debate tonight is not just the substance and policy that will be discussed but also the tenor and the tone. >> well, i used to be a democrat. not no more. i switched to republican but i

don't really go by that. i go by who says what's better. >> 10% or so undecides. they're the people alongside the millions others who will be watching their detective and decide on which candidate they're going to pick. ♪ christian: yes, the u.s. election is on a knife edge. kamala harris and donald trump tied in many of the crucial swing states. tonight they are in arguably the most important of them all, philadelphia. we'll get analysis shortly and our expert panel will join us. also tonight, m.p.'s vote to cut pensions as winter fuel payments and more sanctions on teheran and moscow, the white house revealing that russia has receive a critical supply of

ballistic missiles from iran that will be used this winter in ukraine. we're going to start, though in fa. a live shot for you of the national constitution center in philadelphia where tonight kamala harris and donald trump will meet for the first time and maybe the last time. this is the only debate the two campaigns have signed up to. there will be no live audience, no opening statements. only the mold rate airs. abc's david muir and lindsay davis. remember, each candidate's microphone will be muted wile the other is speaking. our special programming starts at 1:00 a.m. u.c. time and there to guide you through it will be my colleague sumi. big night. the people who say they need to know more about kamala harris are the same voters who are yet to make a decision.

>> that's absolutely right. this is being seen as a high-stakes debate but especially for kamala harris. if you look at some of the recent polling this week from nimes and cnn it was really interesting to nope that at the same time that this is a dead heat of a race, a majority of voters say they don't know enough about kamala harris. they want to know more about who she is, what she stands for and that of what she would enact if president. this is a huge stage for both of them. an opportunity to speak to a wild swath of the population. we are expecting big numbers to be tune tuning in tonight. recognize that massively cons conventional debate on june 27 between president biden and former president trump. there were around 50 million viewers there. we could likely see similar numbers if not more tonight. i have an expert, aaron, the $of

the university of michigan debate program and also wrote the book "debating the donald "on donald trump's detectiving style. these two candidates haven't actually met in person before. what impact do you think that has when they're on the stage together? >> we saw that binden and trump had debated each other previously and this will be the first time that they're maybe in the same room if not the same stage. i think they'll feel some each over out at the start. as they get into it, as they try to get under each other's skin, that's where you could get some of the attacks and nastiness we've seen in the last few debates. >> donald trump is a commanding presence on stage. how much of a role does that play in a debate like this?

>> 6'3",00 and something pounds. yes, he uses that physically over his opponents. there were talking about whether there would be lifts so they would appear the same height. not going to happen. but some of the rules of the debate will prohibit some of the things associated like that like this we saw in trinket when hillary trump and donald trump detected. there was much more roaming around. they'll be behind their podiums. no direct interactions. so some of the combining rules will limit some of that. >> we noted that our partners here on cbs news had a call with hillary clinton, who faced off with donald trump in 2016. detected him three times. what do you think it takes to face donald trump on stage?

>> he's very formidable. this will be his seventh debate. he detected biden, hillary clinton. he may not have won all of those debate but it overall worked out well for him. part of the reason he was the republican nominee in trinket. part of the problem hs so unpredictable. kamala harris has been spending days holed up looking at all those take place but you may get a different donald trump than you've been preparing for. just when you think you have him on one thing, he's moved on to two or three things in the future. he's very unorthodox. doesn't play by the traditional rules. could say or do anything so you have to be able to adapt in the moment and not just go from your practice but what you're dealing with this realtime. >> incredibly high stakes. how are we going to judge who succeeds in this debate? what is the judge of that? >> normally if there's a small

swath of voters that are truly undecided, so they want to really see what's the experience, what's the instead ofment, the vision they have for the country. what are the policies to make my life better. you talk to them after the detective. it's very hard to poll these things and get a good scientific number but generally there will be some polls on how the two candidates connected with them. but it's a very small number but even if the debate only affect thousands or tens of thousands of votes, that could be enough to swing it in these critical battleground stakes. >> debates obviously your speciality. this is like your super bowl so it will be great to catch with of up with you after the debate to get your take. christian, interesting to nope that we were on a call with donald trump's senior campaign advisor and he talked a lot about the fact that trump will

absolutely tie harris to what we called the failures of the bi biden-harris administration. the high inflation, what he called the chaos at the boarder and a wave of violent crime. also, he said there are further failures that trump could address. things like maui wildfires. a train derailment in east palestine. we could see some things come up that we didn't expect so looking forward to see what ends up happening on the debate stage tonight. christian: good stuff. we look forward to your coverage tonight. thank you for that. as sumi says vice president rris would dearly love a moment tonight that revives her momentum. for donald trump it's all about his terms and maybe taking some

air out of that democrat balloon. >> when kamala harris replaced joe biden, the polls shifted. this is the bbc's poll tracker. since kamala harris became the democrats' candidate according to the tracker she's established a small lead over donald trump but the national vote doesn't decide the winner. instead, it's about who get 270 or more electoral college votes and that is decided by state by state results. most states are predictable. we can be almost certain which way they'll vote. which means the small number of states where the outcome is less predictable are crucial. >> less than 1% of america is going to decide who the next president is and that 1% is s important. >> and these swing states are for either side many routes to victory. if harris kes wisconsin, michigan, and passive and wins nba's congressional district, she's over the line in the electoral college.

if trump takes georgia, north carolina and pennsylvania, he's made it. and the latest swing state polling, harris has improved on biden's numbers but look at how close it is. we need to be cautious. the latest swing state numbers all fall within the 3% margin of error. polls have been less accurate when donald trump is on the ballot. there are lots of possible reasons for this. such as trump voters being less likely to respond to pollsters than liberal voter. this meant that in 2016 despite hillary clinton polling well, she took less than the majority of swingtates. all of this explains what i the campaigns spend so much time and money in this these states and why sometimes the polling struggles. >> right now it's so close that polling really is going to of a

hard time telling us what's going to happen. the election is likely to be decided by a small number of groups among the population and unfortunately those are among the most difficult to get survey samples of. >> polls often screen for likely voters but there fortunately be others who don't usually vote but might this time. put all of that together and we start to understand why right now the follows offer both candidates hope but little certainty. christian: as ros explained, harris currently leads in five of the seven battleground state but within the margin of error. so if, as ros was saying, harris takes michigan and wisconsin and the one electoral college vote in that second congressional district of nebraska, that would put her on 252. close but not quite there. this trump wins all the other

states, he becomes the perspective. it could all come down to pennsylvania for both candidates. katie meier is government editor at spotlight p.a. and that does underline, i think for our viewers, why the two campaigns have spent so much time in your state in recent weeks. >> absolutely. passive even in recent months has been inundated by political activity ads, door knockers. yes, there's a good reason why they're here. christian: monday the harris campaign fleshed out some of her policy proposals on her website. it's, i guess, her most expansive explanation of what she want to do yet but she's not been tested on any of that yet. howl voters in pennsylvania do you think will be sitting up and paying attention tonight? >> i do think voters are going to be paying attention and yeah, absolutely i think it makes a difference that it's here, in

philadelphia it's a symbol of how much the campaigns care about pennsylvania so yeah, certainly voters already trying to get a sense of where she is on issues like the economy. issues like energy, things that they think might have an impact on their lives but also, i think she's just trying to convince people that she maybe will be a little different than joe biden. feels more vital than joe biden. >> is it rural vs. the cities? is it philadelphia, pittsburgh for the democrats and who runs up the numbers in the rural district? >> in some ways. it's kind of a broad-stroke correct but it's more complicated than that. pennsylvania has two very big cities and suburbs around them, areas where democrats get a great number of their votes and yes, donald trump has drawn enormous support from rural areas but also, we have to think

about how the small cities are going to vote. usually passive cities are an island of blue surroundedly redder suburbs and rural areas and those have been getting bluer in recent years. the way latino voters turn out. they're not just a democratic model. many have started to vote more conservative. for lots of demographic groups and also part of the state that are less predictable. christian: what about josh shapiro, the governor? he's very popular with democrats and at some republicans. she passed over him for the running mate ticket. do you think he'll be there tonight? does he have a role to play? >> for sure josh shapiro has said that he want to be very involved in the campaign. he said there were no hard feelings that he was passed over. who really knows but yes, for sure. i think shapiro will have a role to play here.

i will say, shapiro, when he won and the sense from his popularity, it comes from him beating very, very conservative republicans here in passive when he won the governorship. so in many ways, harris has a similar task that shapiro had but donald trump has a much bigger hold on that kind of population, this vital population in pennsylvania of slightly less -- more disaffected voter in the rural areas so, you know, what shapiro did to win pennsylvania is a little bit different than what harris has to do. christian: fascinating. katie, i hope we'll talk more in the final few weeks because certainly our focus will be on pennsylvania. thanks for coming on. and just a reminder to stay with us if you can for the next hour of our coverage. got a great panel with us from all sides with their thoughts on what is at stake. around the world and across the u.k., you're watching "bbc

news." let's have a quick look at some of the stories making news here in the u.k. today. the former leader of the democratic unionist participant sir jeffrey donaldson will go on trial in march after pleading not guilty. he's accused of 18 offenses including rape, and indecent assault. all allegedly occurred between 1995 and 2008. his wife, ronald donaldson also denied relating to aiding and abetting. a public inquiry into the crimes of the serial killer lucy letby has heard that she may have been prevented from attacking more babies. the king is queen will head to australia and showa in october in what will be the king's first

foreign trip since being said to be cancer earlier this year. partliment have failed to block the government's plans to block winter fuel payments for millions of pensioners. it means the government won the vote with a majority of 120 although 53 labour m.p.'s did abstain. it means that an estimated 10 million pensioners will not get payments this year to help with their winter heating. the government announced that the full state pension will risely 460 pounds a year in april in line with wages, which ministers believe will soften the blow. let's go to westminster and speak to harry fraley. good to see you. just bun labour m.p. voted

against the parliament. an old ally of jeremy corbin but only ash 3 were unauthorized abstaining. so that would suggest the rebellion was quite big. >> only 12 of those 53 or 52m.p.'s were unauthorized. that doesn't actually tell us how many of those 52 were actively opposed to this change. they could have been opposedut given authorized leave of absences. they can be on all kinds of leaves. so labour sources saying it's only about 12 that were unauthorized but from labour m.p.'s, both who backed the government motion who voted with keir starmer this evening and

what sat on their hands and didn't vote are very open about how much they regret this. how much they didn't want to have to means test this winter fuel payment, meaning that most pensioners will no longer get that 300 pounds or so towards keeping their homes and flats warm this winter. i suppose this is the key test. this has been keir stormer's first parliamentary test, and i think it shows just what a size of the majority he has, that even when there are so many concerns across his back benches, he can still win with a majority of 120. christian: lewis goodall said there were several labour m.p.'s in tears in the voting lobbies in having to vote for the changes. is this a sign of the political pain that this has caused the labour participant? >> it's a good point because

labour have said they need to save 22 billion pounds and this doesn't even come close to that. it saves about 1.5 billion pounds and rachel reeves and keir starmer have said there are more difficult decisions to come. we have that budget at the end of october and rachel has been very open, there will be more difficult decisions to made on tax and on spending and welfare so i suppose the question for how damaging, how difficult this vote has been we'll find out then. this is a bruise that labour m.p.'s have suffered this time but they have to punch that breeze a few more times, so to speak. this is the first of many difficult decisions that the labour government have indicat ed they would need to fill the black hole in the public

finances. rigs consider: what next? >> four m.p.'s remaining will go to the conservative party conference at the end of the month and there's going to be a sort of beauty parade, as it were. think will all get to give speeches try to win over the membership who attend those conferences because they are the ultimate electorate, as it were. after being whittled down to the final two,st the conservative members, those activists who chose out of the final two who becomes leader. christian: the u.k., france, and germany have announced fresh sanctions on iran for supplying russia with ballistic missiles to be used on ukraine. restriction on iran's ability to fly to the u.k. and europe. western officials say these iranian missiles have been used to strike civilian targets in

ukraine. ant any blinken said this decision by iran further threatened european security. >> russia has now received ipments of these missiles and will likely use them within weeks in ukraine against ukrainians. russia has an array of itself own ballistic missiles but the supply of iranian missiles enables russia to use more of its arsenal to targets further from the front line while dedicating the new ones from iran to closer range targets. this development and the growing cooperation between ash i-russia and iran threatens european security. state speaking earlier.y of dr. marina may ram at kings college london is with us. thank you of can you explain more about what the secretary of state was referring to? what is the difference between

the cruise missiles the russians have been using thus far and the ballistic missiles that iran is supplying? >> good evening. well, the difference between the cruise missiles and ballistic missiles is the applied trajectory so basically with cruise missiles, they don't and a specified flight trajectory and decide to lead air defenses and whereas with blistic missiles you could easily calculate a flight trajectory buzz they fly in a half circle so when we're talking about the iranian 3 0. these are ballistic missiles, however, what is unusual here is the relatively short range so the range is 120 kilometers which makes them different from what the russians are fielding right now with their systems. christian: are the allies going to allow the ukrainians to use

these longer range missiles to target the launch sites beyond the border? what did he say about that toy? >> there is a possibility that as the conflict-esque lathes further and ukraine will be pushing for western countries to lift restrictions at least to strike the launch sites, the problem here is, of course, and specifically in the case of the iranian missiles, he could think of them as a heimer system. they are quite mobile, designed to -- making them hard to get. however, there beeis a possibility that sanctions will be lifted. christian: that will form part of the conversation and is the conversation that the prime minister is having with joe biden on friday. in general in terms of the

alliance between teheran and moscow, who is the wilder significance of that? >> if we look at the delivery of these missiles, we're talking about 200 missiles, which is not difference on the battlefield but it's a significant political gesture from the iranian regime to the russians. namely the political support of the russian ongoing campaign in the ukraine and the more significant issue here is the russia-north korea-iran access because those missiles were developed based on north korean systems so the problem for european countries and for nato in general is how to break up this alliance because even if you crabs allowed to launch fire across the border. how are western countries going to restrict shipment from aaron to russia and to prevent russia

from sharing its military technology and know-how with the likes of iran and north korea, who are bh a greater threat to global security well beyond ukrainian borders. chriian: sanctions don't appear to be working at the moment. dr. miram. thank you. good to talk to you. we're going to take a short break and talk about prisoners and a space launch announcer: funding for presentation of this program is provided by... financial services firm, raymond james. announcer: funding was also provided by, the freeman foundation. and by judy and peter blum kovler foundation, pursuing solutions for america's neglected needs. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ announcer: "ustoday" calls it, "arguably the best bargain in streaming." that's because the free pbs app lets you watch the best of pbs anytime, anywhere.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪