geoff: good evening. amna is away. a courts young black voters and tests out the new campaign tactic, playing clips of her opponent donald trump at her rallies. israeli airstrikes increasingly threatened areas once considered safe havens for lebanese civilians already displaced by violence.

in his new book, bob woodward pulls back to the curtain on the biden and trump presidency's and their starkly different relationships with world leaders. >> all of the moments are very tense because the stakes could not be higher. ♪ >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by. ♪ the ongoing support of these individuals and institutions and friends of the news hour. including kathy and paul anderson. and camilla and george smith. >> the charles f kettering foundation, working to advance inclusive democracies. >> it really matters when you have an opportunity to give back. ♪

>> being part of something that is bigger than myself is what brings me happiness. >> being able to integrate your professional career with some of these things that are important to you. >> this is our community too. we want to participate and give back to it. >> people want those opportunities to make a difference. ♪ ♪ >> the john s and james l knight foundation, fostering an and engaged communities. kf.org. ♪ >> 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. geoff: welcome to the news hour. three weeks to go until election day and the race for president remains a dead heat. vice president kamala harris is in detroit meeting with business owners and hitting the radio waves to make her case especially to blackmail voters, but we start in chicago where donald trump talked tariffs and tax cuts at an economic event and defended reported conversations he has had with vladimir putin since leaving office. [applause] stephanie: donald trump faced a grilling at the economic press club of chicago today and was evasive when asked directly about his recently reported phone calls with russia's president.

>> can you say yes or no whether you have talked to vladimir putin since you stopped being president? >> i don't, do know, but if i tell you that if i did, it would be a smart thing. if i'm friendly with people and have a relationship with people, that is a good thing in terms of a country. he has 2000 nuclear weapons and so do we. stephanie: bloomberg's news editor also questions trump's plan for tariffs. >> you are going to find some people who will gain individual tariffs. the overall effect would be massive. >> i agree it will have a massive effect positive. it must be hard for you to spend 25 years talking about tariffs as being negative and then have somebody explain to you you are totally wrong. >> donald john trump! stephanie: the interview comes a day after a bizarre trump town hall in oaks, pennsylvania. the event was twice interrupted by medical emergencies in the audience. as medics responded -- >> put on pavarotti singing ave

maria nice and loud. stephanie: trump requested italian opera from the dj. then trump turned the town hall into a half-hour listening party after the two ill attendees were carried away on stretchers. >> those two people who went down our patriots and because of them we ended up with some good music, right? stephanie: vice president kamala harris is in michigan trying to shore up support among black men. she participated in a radio town hall hosted by charlamagne tha god. >> part of the challenge i face is they are trying to scare people away because they know they otherwise have nothing to run on. ask donald trump what his plan is for black america. ask him. i will tell you what it is. look at project 2025.

project 2025 tells you the plan includes making police departments have stop and frisk policies. stephanie: it is the latest op on her multiplatform media blitz aimed at younger black voters. >> are you with me? >> i'm with you. stephanie: this interview with another massive black audience aired yesterday. >> we capped the cost of prescription medication at $2000 a year for seniors and capped the cost of $35 for our seniors for insulin. black folks are 60% more likely to be diagnosed with diabetes. his plan would eliminate that cap. stephanie: harris is trying new tactics that are rallies too. >> please roll the clip. stephanie: last night, she played a highlight reel of trump's recent comments calling on the national guard and possibly the military to handle "the enemy from within." >> donald trump is increasingly unstable and unhinged.

[applause] and he is out for unchecked power. that is what he is looking for. stephanie: harris's running mate tim walz was in pennsylvania today to try to win over rural voters. >> family farms, we share a proud tradition, the hillary -- history of feeding and fueling our country. i promise you vice president harris and i, when we win this election, we will have rural americans' backs just like they have had hours. he will rally in pittsburgh is president biden heads to pittsburgh. trump's vp pick, ohio senator jd vance, will hold a town hall in lafayette hill, a philly suburb. both campaigns have their eyes locked on the keystone state. for the pbs news hour, i'm stephanie sy. geoff: let's turn to a veteran republican strategist to take a closer look at how the trump and harris teams are navigating the

weeks that remain in the selection. mike murphy is a veteran gop advisor who served as east senior strategist on john mccain's campaign and has also worked for mitt romney and arnold schwarzenegger's campaigns. mike: thank you. geoff: donald trump sounded pretty comfortable about his election day prospects. democrats acknowledge they will have to fight for every vote. kamala harris says it will be a tight race, but i'm going to win. what is your assessment of the race three weeks out? mike: i think it is an absolute 50/50 coin toss. she is a little bit ahead in the national vote, but in our modern era it is quite possible to win the national popular vote and lose the presidency because of the way the electoral college works. when you look at those key states, georgia, arizona, nevada, michigan, wisconsin,

pennsylvania, and potentially north carolina, trump is doing better than he is nationally. in the last seven or eight days, he has gone from a tiny bit behind to a tiny bit ahead in many of those states. some he has always been ahead. they are up-shifting come of the harris campaign, and they need to. this is all within the margin, but they have run out of steam a little and they know it, so you see her doubling down and increasing aggression, doing all the things a smart campaign does in this race. geoff: the harris campaign believes they need to drive up donald trump's negatives. that is why they are trying to goad him into another debate, criticizing him for backing out of the 60 minutes interview because they believe the more the public sees of donald trump, the more the public will realize why he wasn't reelected in 2020. do you believe in their theory of the race? mike: i partially agree. it is a bit of a dangerous game

because the perception of trump's pretty dug in. people don't like trump. they are trying to find out if she is an acceptable alternative. the main dynamic of this race is people are happy -- unhappy with the incumbent party. they think things were better off for them economically four years ago. if a republican without the baggage of a donald trump, which is epic, were running, that republican would be well ahead right now. trump is holding down the republican opportunity. reminding people of all his problems and projecting them forward is good politics for them, but it is secondary. the most important thing they have to do is win the battle over defining kamala harris who is far less known then trump is. her numbers are more fragile end of trump defines her better than she defines herself, if they see her as a biden sidekick and is part of that incumbent structure they want to throw out based on

inflation, she is going to lose. it is very seductive to make the supporters you are already have happy by banging on the villain you don't like, but she has to move the needle on her. attacking trump can do that comparatively, it can show her in charge. i like the new stepped up things they are doing, but they have to close the deal on her which means she has to get out there more because the campaign had a pretty weak schedule the last 10 days. they are now shifting forward and that is a good thing, but they need more of it, particularly convincing people she represents change from biden and a better economic future, she is not more of the same. geoff: let's talk about the ground game. harris campaign is running an expansive version of a traditional political field operation. the trump campaign seems to be banking on this idea that the people who already voted for him will vote for him again. the folks voted for him in 2020 will come out again and they are

trying to reach smaller groups of irregular voters. compare and contrast the get out the vote operations. mike: she has more of the traditional, she has more money, more resources, it is a more professional campaign in many ways. the ugly little secret a presidential race were turn is generically high, far higher than midterms, which are about a third less, turnout is not as important, because you already get a large percentage going. it can be a useful builder at the edge, but only if you have a good message. if she can't close the deal with early voting starting to skyrocket, all the turnout in the world won't save her. on the other hand, trumps turnout operation is much weaker, but he is a known quantity and he is being propelled by a force he didn't create. the perception people have that things cost too much now, they were cheaper four years ago, and we need a new economic manager. as much as they don't like

trump, people think he did a better job running the economy than the biden-harris administration. she has closed that gap some, but that is still the mighty force propelling trump and trump may not need turnout to win if she cannot convince people she is the right kind of change. geoff: the trump campaign strategy of trying to reach what some people call low propensity voters, irregular voters, groups of young men for instance, trump has been doing a lot of podcasts aimed at young men, do you think that will produce dividends? mike: i don't think any of this stuff -- it is all feathers against a bowling ball. the big drivers here are "in the harris show us she is earning and connecting to people as the right kind of change? or can donald trump successfully prosecute the kind of generic case that these people, this administration of which she is an integral part have done a terrible job on the economy, she is liberal and out of the mainstream, which is what of a

lot of his advertising is on, so you have to fire them and let me fix the economy. that is the epic battle here. all of this other stuff is at the margins. the biggest factor between now and election day is getting kamala out of this bubble. let her campaign, created the music of the campaign that she is a happy warrior working hard, don until dusk, earning it. that has been missing the last 10 days. the last two or three days, they are doing it and i applaud that. without it, i don't think they will win. geoff: mike murphy, a real pleasure to speak with you. mike: thank you. geoff: tomorrow, we will speak with the democratic campaign strategist james carville to get his take on the presidential race. ♪ ♪

we start the day's other headlines in georgia, where a judge has ruled county election officials must certify the state's election results. a republican on fulton county's election board claimed local election officials could refuse to certify, but in his ruling the superior court judge said concerns about fraud or systemic error are to be noted and shared with the appropriate authorities, but they are not a basis to decline to certify. georgia's secretary of state highlighted the importance of this part of the democratic process. >> we have always believed everyone should follow the law and follow the constitution. that is an american value. i think that is very important than that is affirmed in the judicial system and we will make sure we follow the law and follow the constitution in everything we do. geoff: early in person voting started today in georgia. the state shattered its record for the first day of early

voting. china, iran, and russia are increasingly partnering with cyber criminals to target the u.s. and other nations. the report cites one example where hackers with links to iran infiltrated an israeli dating site and tried to sell or ransom the information it gathered. microsoft said the data show the ongoing impacts in broader geopolitical conflicts. authorities into mexico say the number of migrant deaths have increased tenfold in recent years. new data shows more than 100 bodies were found near the border in the first eight months of this year compared to nine bodies found in 2020. many were discovered near the el paso texas border crossing. it is unclear why more bodies are ending up there though smugglers are increasingly

steering migrants into dangerously hot areas of the state. south korean officials say north korea blew up roads and railways that once connected the two countries. the latest action comes after north korea accused the south of dropping propaganda leaflets over its p on young. south korean security cameras capture the explosions on the northern side of the heavily armed border between the two countries. south korean officials called the move highly abnormal and regressive. >> what north korea has done today is a clear violation of the inter-korean agreement. we see it as a very abnormal act and the south korean government is strongly condemning it. geoff: the south korean military responded by firing warning shots near the southern part of the border and say they are on a heightened state of readiness for any aggression from the north. boeing laid out plans to try to raise as much is $25 billion to

help its troubled finances. in back-to-back regulatory filings, they said they could raise the cash over the next three years by issuing new stock or debt. boeing also plans to enter into a new $10 billion credit agreement with the banks. the company has lost more than $25 billion since the start of 2019. an ongoing strike by thousands of workers who build some of its most popular planes is only adding to boeing's financial pressures. on wall street today, stocks stepped back from recent records. the dow jones industrial more than 300 points, falling below the 43,000 point level. the nasdaq lost more than 180 points. the s&p 500 also ended lower on the day. and the pandas have landed. 11 months after the national zoo's three panda residen made it back to china, two new bears are here to take their place in washington's national zoo. they landed at dulles airport

this morning as part of a 10 year agreement with chinese authorities. the zoo was closed today in anticipation of their arrival. the animals will go through an extended quarantine and acclamation period before they are introduced to the public, so panda fans will have to wait for now. still to come on the news hour renowned journalist bob woodward on his new book about the wars in ukraine, the middle east, and the u.s. presidential campaign/ a behind the scenes look about how the associated press determines the winners of thousands of races in this year's election. a documentary filmmaker uses legos to tell the story of music legend for a williams. ♪ >> this is the pbs news hour from the david and ruben sign studio iw eta in washington and from the walter cronkite school of journalism at arizona state university. geoff: the push and pull of the

u.s.-israel relationship was on full display today as the u.s. warned israel it could cut off arms shipments unless they allow more aid into gaza. israel and the u.s. appear to be in sync on how they will strike iran and response to its recent ballistic missile attack. nick schifrin this year with more on this. nick: u.s. officials are increasingly worried about humanitarian conditions in gaza since israel launched a new operation in the last two weeks. the u.s. said some 400,000 gazans have been trapped by intense airstrikes and ground operations, only dozens of trucks have entered since october 1. the u.s. says a delivery overall has fallen 50% from its peak. so, secretary of state antony blinken and secretary of defense lloyd austin sent a letter to their counterparts with a long list of demands, including enable 350 trucks per day into

gaza. the number right now is a fraction of that. an act humanitarian pauses for the next four months. allow the displaced currently sheltering on the beach in a designated humanitarian zone to move inland before the winter. and to publicly reaffirm there is no policy of forced evacuations from northern gaza. it requires the u.s. law to prevent weapons sales if the u.s. formally declares that israel is arbitrarily blocking u.s. aid into gaza. here is the state department spokesman matt miller. >> we know that it is possible to get humanitarian assistance into gaza. we know it can be done. we know the logistical and bureaucratic obstacles can be surmounted. it is incumbent upon israel to surmount those challenges and get assistance in.

nick: u.s. aid argued israel was arbitrarily blocking aid into gaza and back then blinken used a snapshot rather than months of argument to argue they were not blocking aid. this time they are giving them 30 days to comply. it means the deadline is after the u.s. election. geoff: israel and the u.s. see more in sync about how they will respond to the most recent attack. nick: an official says they have agreed on the nature of israel's response to iran's unprecedented ballistic missile attack. some 180 iranian ballistic missiles hitting their military and intelligence sites. president biden and u.s. officials have told israel they

will oppose strikes on iranian energy or nuclear sites. instead, they want israel to target parallel sites, military or intelligence sites in iran. an official says the response will be mainly military targets, substantial, and while they want preview the timing, this person says it will happen before the u.s. election. u.s. officials hope the nature of israel strike will end this round rather than inspire iran to launch another round of ballistic strikes and the u.s. has made that hope clear to iran. geoff: have u.s. officials messaged iran about reported threats against donald trump? nick: they have. u.s. intelligence briefed former president trump and his campaign in the campaign words of real and specific threats from iran to assassinate him in response to an early 2020 assassination.

at the president's direction, we have send messages to the highest levels of the iranian government warning them to cease all plotting against donald trump and former u.s. officials and the u.s. would consider an attempt on trump's life and act of war. biden has told the secret service to provide former president trump every level of protection they can. the trump campaign recently asked for more, they asked for military aircraft and iran denies any plotting against the former president. geoff: thank you for all that reporting. we shift our focus to lebanon where israel and iran's strongest proxy militia hezbollah are fighting what looks more and more like its own war. they said they did not improve the bombing campaign that has led to major civilian casualties. far from beirut in northern lebanon, we reported in the

aftermath of a deadly israeli airstrike the targeted one known has below member but killed nearly two dozen other people. images in this story are disturbing. >> lebanon's war has now climbed its famed mountains. scattered across a rolling hill of olive groves as far as the eye can see, the chart aftermath of an and norma's bomb. for nearly 24 hours, paramedics and rescue workers dug through the ruins of this home hit by an israeli airstrike yesterday in a northern lebanese maronite catholic village. first, they were looking for bodies, then they searched for pieces of them. overturned cars surrounding the house burned as they tried to save who they could. the weapons being used are so powerful that they pulverize not just buildings, but the bodies inside. these paramedics are digging for body parts and we saw a child

foot placed into a body bag. there aren't many members of the family left. 23 of the 29 people were killed. nearly an entire family line wiped out in a moment. they were lucky to have a friend in the north who would take them in. the welcome is turning to fear. threatening to open sectarian wounds. >> i welcomed refugees from the south into my home. i had been friends with this family a most 15 years. >> the signs of that life unlettered everywhere in the rubble. >> suddenly a man i didn't know

came to offer the family's help and money. the situation was peaceful here until that man came, knowing he was putting the people in danger. >> that man reportedly a low level has below member was a target of the attack. dozens of civilians died alongside him. >> people are increasingly afraid -- afraid that it could be next. this is a peaceful christian village in the north of lebanon surrounded by all of trees and what happened yesterday came out of the blue for everyone. the restful mountain has been shattered. the force of the explosion was so great, three bodies were propelled into his front garden. >> there were dead bodies

everywhere, a lot of people died. smoke was all over the place. >> through the night and on into today, rescue workers searched for survivors. >> the dead body belongs to a baby. they couldn't find him until now. they found him in the trunk. they found his small, lifeless body inside a mangled nearby car. the blast had thrown him out of the house into the wreckage. lebanese increasingly feel nowhere is safe here. as is really strikes move further into these areas, locals now fear they will bring the threat with them. >> of course after this i'm more cautious of welcoming refugees from the south because we lost everything and that is a problem. we are all paying the price all

over lebanon. >> they insist they will keep doing what they can to help their fellow lebanese. as the carnage spreads and some attempt to tear open age-old divisions, lebanese pray they can hold their community and their country together. for the pbs news hour, i'm layla milana à la. ♪ geoff: few journalists working today has covered as many presidents as the washington post's bob woodward. his latest book is out today and nick schifrin spoke with him a short time ago. nick: woodward's new book is titled war, about war in ukraine, the middle east, but also a war for the american presidency. bob woodward is here, welcome back. bob: thank you. nick: president biden's policy when it comes to prime minister

netanyahu is often referred to as the bearhug, as in the closer biden holds bb, hopefully the more he will be willing to moderate his behavior toward u.s. interests. in private, you quote biden calling netanyahu an esso be, one of the biggest f-ing a-holes in the world and a liar. there comes an unprecedented moment in the middle east. biden is trying to get israel to listen to him when it comes to responding to the october 7 attacks. did the president feel like netanyahu listened? bob: well, there was listening, but bibi is going to do what he wants and he says so to biden. look, i'm going to have to do some of these things that maybe you are not going to like, but what is so interesting, there can be an alliance of policy, as

somebody in the white house said that biden's policy is pro-israel, but not necessarily pro netanyahu. nick: there was a similar gap between what the president said in public in terms of support for netanyahu and how he described him in private that you describe with vice president harris. you described this meeting vice president harris had with netanyahu back in july and after the meeting, you quote the israeli ambassador saying the meeting was cordial. but after, terrace comes out and said i will not stand silent as the people of gaza suffer. netanyahu you say was furious. bob: he was furious because at the meeting, which was a kind of israel-united states, everything is fine, and then when she makes that declaration, it tells you something about her. she is separating herself from some of the biden policy.

netanyahu is just burning furiously. this is just a couple of months ago. she is liable to be the next united states president as you know, as she knows. there is a fury, but it seems to stay private. nick: by september 2020 two, u.s. intelligence reports considered exquisite revealed putin was so desperate about battlefield losses, the chances he might use tactical nuclear weapons in ukraine had gone from 5% to 10% to 50%, basically a coin flip. why? what were the indications that the chances were so high? bob: this strain in all of this is u.s. intelligence has gotten better and better. they actually have some points know what is going on in the kremlin. at one point, they have a human

source that is really telling them, so they have that picture. and they realize that putin is the autocrat, he is desperate, and any catastrophic battlefield loss would mean we will use tactical nuclear weapons. he does it in private, but in public, it goes from 5% up to 50% and in the white house, they realized 50% is a coin flip. and the deputy national security advisor realizes what a momentous moment this is and reflects -- this is what it must've been like in 1962 during the cuban missile crisis. nick: you describe an all hands on deck order from the president

where everybody calls the russian counterpart, including this conversation between lloyd austin and the russian defense minister. lloyd austin says, "if you did this, all the restraints we have been operating under in ukraine would be reconsidered, this would isolate russia on the world stage to a degree you russians cannot fully appreciate." he replies, "i do not take kindly to being threatened." posten says, "i'm the leader of the most powerful military in the world, i do not make threats." a couple days later, his russian counterpart calls back and says, we have this intelligence that says the ukrainians are thinking about using a dirty bomb, basically releasing radioactive material into ukraine. lloyd austin says, this seems like you are trying to establish the predicate for using nuclear weapons, don't do it. he replies, i understand. how tense was that phone call

and moment? bob: all of the moments are very, very tense because the stakes could not be higher. the idea of putin, remember who he is, autocrat, i report that the intelligence agencies assessment of him is that he is not only a brutal leader, he is sadistic. and that is pretty stark. nick: let's move to former president donald trump. you report that as president in 2020 he sent a bunch of point-of-care covid test machines for putin's personal use when those were in short supply at the time and that since trump has left office, he and putin have spoken as many as seven times. do you believe it is still a mystery as you quote former director national intelligence saying it is a mystery why trump

treats putin this way? bob: or is that blackmail is what coats asks the question about? now we see today that trump is out saying, not denying that he has talked to putin. nick: and saying maybe it would be smart if i did. bob: and when trump says something is smart, that means he has either done it or he is planning on doing it. so, the relationship between putin and trump is central to understanding trump. because the characteristics of trump are he really has no plan, it is just what comes into his mind. and he has no team. he operates alone. this is very different than the kind of relationship that others have had with putin. nick: finally, i wonder if we

could look forward. many of president biden's aides i speak to say that they don't think they will get the cease-fire in gaza they have been looking for, they are not even calling for a cease-fire in lebanon. when it comes to ukraine, they are worried that the best ukraine can do is hold the line over the next year. so, while they are proud they haven't gotten into these wars with u.s. boots as you write about, they are worried that their legacy is not ending the wars it started on their watch. bob: very important is that he intentionally did not put u.s. troops. joe biden is somebody who experience something called vietnam. he looks at vietnam as this is where we send half a million

american troops to vietnam to fight in a foreign war because of that giant danger of allegedly north korea. biden says that is when you step off the cliff, when you put american troops at risk and by not doing that, he has put the united states in a much better position and the overall conclusion i reach is one of the things biden did his he made the homeland safer by not getting involved with u.s. troops in the middle east or in asia or anywhere. nick: bob woodward, the book is "war." thank you so much. ♪ geoff: so, candidates are

campaigning, absentee ballots are being mailed out, early votes are being cast. it is leading to november 5 and one big question. who won? vos actually have to be counted to find that out. how the associated press keeps track of thousands of competitive races and makes the call. ♪ >> for decades, millions of viewers like you have turned to the pbs news hour on election night to see history and learn the future of the country. >> the associated press has officially declared president clinton. lisa: and for decades, pbs news and hundreds of other news outlets have relied on the associated press to count votes and call winners. >> we are hedging our wagon to the ap. lisa: it is a monumental task. this year on election night, the ap's team of journalists will track over 5000 competitive races.

president, congress, mayors, and many more. >> we like to call it the single biggest active journalism there is. lisa: david scott is the ap's vice president of new strategy and operations. he oversees the election team. >> our number one most important goal on election night is to be 100% right in our race calls. lisa: 100%. >> that is our standard. we do care about speed, but only as a secondary factor. never compromise on accuracy in an effort to be faster. lisa: the ap has been counting the vote including 175 years. >> we are really, really proud of the role we play in the democracy. the founders didn't think through how we would get from poll close to inauguration day. who will count the votes and who will say if there is a winner? ap decided in 1848 that we would

jump into that process. lisa: we watched the process at the ap's washington bureau on one of the final primary nights of the year. >> there is usually a rhythm and it usually starts off slow. lisa: in a quiet corner of the mostly empty newsroom, the election team was keeping track of about three dozen races in just one state, deciding when to call a winner in each. >> a check mark, there it goes. lisa: on general election night, this newsroom will be filled, handling a slate of races 150 times larger. no matter the scale, the fundamentals remain the same. >> we will get to a point where we get a model recommendation. lisa: the ap calls races when it is certain that statistically only one person can win. >> we are looking to know one thing. can the trailing candidates catch up? once we are certain they can't, that is when we call the race. lisa: the real-time call takes months of planning coming years of experience, and data, lots

and lots of data. i see it flashing green. does that mean you are getting updated votes? >> yes. lisa: the official vote count is the actual tally in each race. with tens of thousands of polling places across the country, it is a big job. >> we will have people in place at county election offices, so it is about 4000 reporters across the country. and that is just one of the ways we collect the vote. we also take in data feeds, scraping websites, looking at websites and manually entering them. we are looking to get the vote count from as many sources as we can and not just one source. lisa: but as the numbers come in, the ap also needs to figure out how many votes are left to be counted? how many votes is this until a final count? the ap carefully estimates the total number of ballots expected

to be cast in each state. as voting methods have shifted, this has become trickier. the number grew steadily until the pandemic upended the 2020 election and nearly 70% of votes were cast early either in person or by mail. pos suggest half of voters may do the same this year. >> we are looking at how many people were registered, what is the turnout in the past comparable election, how many advanced votes are in the ballot box. we plug that all into a model where we are trying to estimate how much votes have been cast. lisa: in real time you can estimate whether it will be a bigger or smaller election. >> once polls close, those returns feed into the model as well. you see that estimate change

over the course of the night. that is not a problem, that is us adjusting to the data. lisa: states count and release different types of votes in different order. in battleground arizona, they start counting votes as they are returned, but they don't release until an hour after polls close. in pennsylvania, early ballots are not processed until election day. in new hampshire, they aren't counted until polls close. >> we are looking for patterns when we are calling races. are there a class of early ballots that have yet to be counted? what do we expect them to say about the course of the election? if we had to wait for 100% of ballots to be counted, we would not know what had taken place for weeks after election day. lisa: if the presidential race is close, as many expected to be, it may still take days to know the winner, just like it did in 2020.

what does a 0% confidence score mean? >> it means we are not ready to call it. lisa: all the data flow into a computer model. you start to get a pretty good pattern. it is still analyzed by real people. you see no way the other candidates could win. >> no. lisa: those observers have added data from another unique way the ap gets election information, the vote system. voter surveys of more than 120,000 people across all 50 states. the ap survey is an update and twist on traditional exit for, where someone would stand outside a polling place and ask people who they voted for. ap now accounts for people who vote early or by mail or who stay home entirely. to do that, the vote cast team conducts surveys online and on the phone all the way up until one polls close. the data help explain who voted and why. >> we are able to analyze

smaller slices of the electorate with a margin of error that means we can act on it. we are able to look at hispanic voters or african-american voters or young voters. but then also combinations of those voters in a way that helps us potentially get to a race call sooner or understand the way that the electorate is shaping up in a level of detail that didn't exist before. lisa: all of that, 4000 reporters getting real-time results, months of estimating a likely turnout, and surveys of over 100,000 people, it all leads to the big moment and the actual race call. >> they are doing it right now. lisa: david and his team weigh in and then the major calls including for president in close date go to the desks of the executive editor and the washington bureau chief. >> we will make that final signoff to say, yes, let's go with it. for we have some questions, some things we want to answer. have we looked at this or that?

ultimately it is to say yay or nay. lisa: what kind of pressure do you feel? >> there was ultimately a lot of pressure in it. on the other hand, we know we are right and the goal is to get the information to the world. lisa: in those moments, even on a busy general election night, the crowded newsroom can feel as small as it was for a single state's primary election. >> most of the times it is fairly common there was a lot of focus. lisa: it is quiet? >> it can be somewhat quieter. everyone needs to pay attention. lisa: focus and attention on the ap's biggest active journalism, a responsibility grounded in a massive, careful, hands on operation and a they take seriously, no matter which election they are watching or how long it takes to call the winter. >> there is always a moment every general election where for a very small amount of time you are the first person to know who will be the next president. you cherish that and then you get down to business calling

that race. lisa: for the pbs news hour, i'm lisa desjardins at the ap news desk in washington. ♪ geoff: pharrell williams is a hit maker for himself and as music producer for a string of other artists from jay-z to justin timberlake. his story is being told on film with lego bricks. certainly not your usual approach to documentary filmmaking, but the latest from one of today's leading documentary filmmakers morgan neville. our senior arts correspondent spoke with him for our arts and culture series canvas. >> i love music. everybody loves music, but i'm realizing i had a different kind of relationship with it. >> early in the new film piece by piece, pharrell williams looks back at his childhood and how music would utterly mesmerize him. >> i didn't even know that i was mesmerized.

i thought that's what all black kids did. i thought we all stared into the speaker. ♪ >> pharrell, as he is best known, heard and saw music as explosions of color and light, a sensory phenomenon known as synesthesia. ♪ how to capture the excitement, strangeness, the journey pharrell would take from housing project in virginia beach to pop-culture fame, that was the job of filmmaker morgan neville. andy even he is not sure what he has made. how do you explain what the film is has been the challenge from the beginning. it doesn't conveniently fit into any box we are used to. >> you have had time to figure it out. how do you describe it? >> you know, it is adocu -bio-musical and animation. what would you be wearing in this interview? >> for one thing, it is a story told with lego pieces.

traditional documentary style interviews turn into animation, other scenes conceived and built as animation from the start. ♪ all to creatively capture the mind and works of a hard to categorize cultural figure. ♪ who as performer, music producer, and beat maker working with many of today's megastars including jc and snoop dogg has helped transform the sound of today's music. ♪ telling the story in legos was actually pharrell's idea, a moment captured in the film along with morgan neville's initial puzzlement. >> you know what would be cool? if we told my story with lego pieces. >> seriously? >> yes. >> he came to embrace the challenge. >> i think that the lego allowed

me to get more inside his mind than i could have. >> because? >> because i could see what he was seeing. the fact that we can illustrate his synesthesia, which means he sees color when he hears sound and music or that we can physically manifest of the beats he is making is something you can't normally do. in that way, i felt like the lego animation allowed me to be inside his imagination. >> once you are playing with form, once you are playing with animation, once you are constructing scenes in a different way, once you are playing with all kinds of things , is it still a documentary? >> you know, i think it is. people may disagree. call it creative nonfiction. >> creative nonfiction? >> documentary comes with the rulebook and this film is not

about the rulebook. but to me it is a deeply truthful film about who he is based on documentary technique. >> neville has built a filmmaking career telling the story of other creative people. >> how many of you applauded because you thought i was dead? >> major cultural figures like steve martin. >> anthony bourdain in roadrunner in 2021. >> i like you. >> and mr. rogers in 2018's won't you be my neighbor. >> is 2013 film 20 feet from stardom about the backup singers whose voices helped shape usable memories but never quite reached fame on their own won an oscar for best documentary.

>> creativity always feels a bit like magic to me. it is never done the same way twice. when it happens, true originality, it is utterly unpredictable. culture to me is not just in film or music. it is how we define ourselves and other people. i'm always interested in that. these other questions i ask of myself as a creative person. i want to know how other people navigate those things. >> one thing he has never done before piece by piece, and p are in one of his own films. and certainly not as a lego figure. >> being a mini figure, we worked on this film for more than five years and i designed

my character four years ago. it took so long. >> you were designing yourself. >> one of my wearing and what do i look like? it took so long that my hair went from salt-and-pepper to just salt. [laughter] >> as you make more and more films, are you looking for new creative ways to do it? >> absolutely. this is the biggest swing i have done in filmmaking in my career. what you get to do as a documentarian is you get licensed to investigate the most important things in people's lives. they trust you with those things and you get to share them with the world. it is an incredible responsibility and an incredible power. it is something i never take for granted. ♪ >> piece by piece is now in

theaters around the country. for the pbs news hour, i'm jeffrey brown in new york. ♪ ♪ geoff: and that is the news hour for tonight. i'm geoff bennett. for all of us, thanks for spending part of your evening with us. >> major funding for the pbs news hour has been provided by -- consumer cellular, how can i help you? >> this is pocket dial. >> i thought i would let you know that you get nationwide coverage with no contract. that is kind of everything. ♪

>> moving our economy for 160 years, bnsf, the engine that connects us. ♪ >> carnegie corporation of new york, working to reduce political polarization, education, democracy, and peace. more information at carnegie.org. and with the ongoing support of these 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. ♪

♪ >> you are w

hello, everyone, and welcome to "amanpour and company." here's what's coming up. a dire situation from lebanon to northern gaza, as israeli forces pound both. i spoke to unicef about the ongoing humanitarian catastrophe. then -- >> his lips are moving, he's not telling the truth. >> with three weeks left until the u.s. election, theace remains neck and neck, and anxiety runs high. how speaker