lisa desjardins reports on brett kavanaugh's path to confirmation. >> desjardins: echoing on >> desjardins: echoing on capitol hilloday, photo clicks and footsteps as supreme court nominee brett kavanaughad his busiest day yet: meeting with six senators, including five democrats. one meeting overshadowed them all. maine senator susan collins' vote could be decisive, with 50 republicans regurly voting in the chamber now, the party may need them all to get kavanaugh confirmed. collins emerged still undecided more than two hours later, judge kavanaugh's longest meeting. >> we talked about executive power. g talked about the "helle decision. we talked about his judicial philosophy. >> desjardins: and, they talked eabout abortion, the issu driving both protests against and praise of kavanaugh, seen as conservative on the issue. collins, supports roe versus wade and said kavanaugh laid oui hi. h >> he saconsidered "roe"ee settled law, awith chief justice roberts, said it was settled law. >> desjardins: these w roberts words as a nominee in 2005 aut roe. >> it is settled as a precedent of the cou

lisa desjardins begins our look at the major take-aways from primaries in four states. >> desjardins: america has not. seen this vermont electric co-op c.e.o.st chriine hallquist is now the first openly transgender person to win a major party's nomination for governo she trounced her democratic competition in tuesday's primar >> it's not just about the transgender communit it's not just about the l.g.b.t. community, it's about all marginalized communities. >> desjardins: vermont was part of a national night of firsts for democrats. nain connecticut, former nl teacher of the year jaha hayes could become the first black woman in congress from new england, thanks to her prima win. >> tonight is the beginning of the real fight: the fight for the soul of this nation. >> desjardins: and in minnesota, ilhan omar is poised to be the first somali-american in congress and one of the first muslim women in coress. a refugee at eight years old, she nodded toward history. >> i think about the kind of hope and optimism that all of those eight-year-olds around the country and around the world get fro

a desjardins: and sharply questioning them.enators from both parties, ouncerned the agencies are failing a massive of immigrant children. >> desjardins: at issue is the group of children known as unaccompanied minors. just in u.s. has seen more than 200,000 unaccompanied minors-- kids arriving illegally by themselves-- without parents or guardians. this does include the smaller kids recently separated from parents. they are initially in the custody of the health and human services department, then the agency places the vast majority with temporary sponsors inside the u.s., often, but not always family members. last night, the senate homeland security committee released a three-year investigation finding that once the kids are with sponsors-- no agency, no one in the federal government is keeping track of them. jonathan white oversees child reunification for h.h.s. via what's called the office of refugee resettlement, or o.r.r. he said it is not their responsibility. >> h.h.s. does not presently have the authority to exercise su

for the pbs newshour, i'm lisa desjardins. druff: iraqi jets today launched an air strike against isis fighters inside of syria, where the u.s. is on the ground artner forces trying to finish off the islamic state. the wider war inside syria has been raging for seven years. but bashar al assad's army is preparing for what could be the war's final major battle. nick schrin has that story. >> schifrin: the horror of syria's war has feltss. half a million dead. millions displaced. but the battlefield has shifted dramatically. take a look at this map. september 30, 2015, the da russia intervened.ri the government, in red, controlled pockets across the west. isis controlled a spidin the center and east. and this is today. the syrian government, in red, has made dramatic progress. isis, in black, reduced to a small area. anti-government rebels, in green, only have a few pockets. the most important is lib. that is the likely last, major battle of the syrian war. the yellow is kurdish controlled. take a look at these photos from the k

joan biskupic, lisa desjardins, thank you both. >> thank you. >> woodruff: t tragic murder of a young woman in iowa might not have received mu national attention, but that all changed when an immigrant from mexico, in the country illegally, was charged with her mur as william brangham reports, mollie tibbetts' case has now been seized upon by the president and his party. >> brangham: mollie tibbets was a co20-year-olege student from the university of iowa who, back in july, went out for her usual evening run. she never came home. for five weeks, her family and local authorities searched everywhere. they setup a website for tips; police conducted hundreds of interviews. but then, on tuesday morning, authorities discovered tibbett's a corn field covered with leaves. the man who'd taken police to the spot, 24 year old christian rivera, is now charged wh her murdbe. rivera is lieved to have entered the u.s. illegally from mexico. he lived in a neighboring town and worked at a local dairy for several years.'s while riverarrest brought some sense of closure to the tibbett's family, the trag

who could find the reough coverage.out >> desjardins: thedent says there needs to be more affordable options than somef the insurance available through the obamacare marketplaces. the short-term plans will likely offer much lower premiums. but insurers would not have to cover pre-existing conditions, or offer the same benefits as required by the affordable careu act. ently, people can only use short-term coverage for three monthsle but the new would allow people to keep those plans for a year, and potentially renew it for a total of three years. julie appleby covers this for kaiserealth news. and joins me now. julie, let me just start off rightway, while the trump administration says these are good options for people, cheaper, opponents say they're skimpy and risky. just explain whathe plansy. >> stheers short-term plans that are meant to be stopgap between maybe you've lost your job or between jobs and need coverage, so they're meant to be a stopgap, for a long time.und they are, currently, as you mentioned, available only up to 90 days, so you have to rene them every few months. th

along with our capitol hill correspondent, lisa desjardins. and larry noble, a cn finance expert and former general counsel for the federal election commission. larry noble, i'm going to turn to you before i turn to my "newshour" colleagues toif clwhat is the violation here, if any, ofcampaign finance laws? we've had one version, we've heard from michael cohen in the courtroom yesterday, his plea, and then the president tod saying something different. how do you interpret all this? m >> well, if whhael cohen has said is true and if the information the u.s. attorney vpresented is true you e several campaign finance violations. i have a corporate contributlon because its like the trump organization reimbursed for the payments, you ove anther corporate contribution from american media, if that's the company they're referring to, paying for other payments for karen mcdougall. >> woodruff: the "national enquirer." >> national inquiring paying for payments for karen mcdougall. you have excessive contributions by michael cohen because when hs paid ou

wlisa desjardins reports t the winners in arizona anda florll us about the 2018 midterms. >> reporter: he entered election day behind in funding and behind in the polls, but last night, democrat andrew gillum pulled off an historic upset in florida. democrats narrowly picked the progressive tallahassee mayorn over better-knd more moderate opponents, like gwenah gram, a former congresswoman and daughter of former governor bob graham. i gillthe state's first black nominee for governor, onec of three a american gubernatorial candidates this year, along with fellow democrats ben jealous in maryland and stacey abrams in georgia. s>> just a few people whod this moment would not be possible. ( cheers ) a few. and then there were, and then there were, and then there were a few more, who believed this thing was possible. ( cheers ) >> reporter: this sets up a battle between polar forces in u.s. politics, as gillum, backed by bernie sanders, will face g.o.p. nominee and congressman ron desantis, who was embraced by president trump. >> and i was able to talk to the president. i want to thank him

congressional correspondent lisa desjardins joins me now to examine the implications. lisa, we're talking about a million documents, what's in them? why does this matter? li>> could be up to a mi documents. these are the paper brett kavanaugh wrote including e-mails, policyents when he worked in the white house counsel's office and staff secretary. republicans point out a lot could be e-mails he was just cc'd or blind copied on, things he didn't actually ringn on. so it's not clear how much of this is pertinent to him as a nominee. however, democrats say they want n see every single piece of paperwork they cr this important nominee. >> woodruff: so what effect is is likely to have on th timing of the confirmation hemearings? >>kably, doesn't look like any effect. i spoke to a mti democ aid regarding this scotus nomination fight. he said chuck schumer is not requesting a delay because of this document news today. however, there may be a separate place the gcanet the documents, from president george w. bush's own team. they are separately going through these documents an

russia obe at a fundraiser: >> brangham: i'm joined now by our capitol hill correspondent lisa desjardins. so what are we supposed to make of this? devin nunes has been criticizing the mueller probe fog a l time. so on one level this isn't surprising, but still, this is the head of the house intel committee seeming to imply that his job is to protect the president from robert mueller. >> that's what stands out here. devin nunes, as you said, is the head of one of the most important committees of congress. his job is oversight of the most sensitive information about protecting this country that there is. that job has generally not been partisan. on the other hand, devin nun is also someone on the steering committee for the trump campaign. it's an isue of how he been balancing those two roles. in the tape, it makes it seem like his priority is to protect and reelect te president versus thinking about intelligence matters. clearly he's a person that can do both, but in that tape you want to thibout perhaps a onfferent trump administration official, jeff ses he's also in the trump campaign. i